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1991-01-01
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3,705 lines
THE GRADING ASSISTANT _____________________
a grade averaging system
for teachers
Advance Release of
Version 4.0
January 1, 1991
(SHAREWARE Distribution Version)
COPYRIGHT NOTICE ________________
This program and manual are copyright (C) 1987-1991 by the author, Jim
Reid. All rights are reserved worldwide.
Contents ________
System Features......................................................1
System Requirements..................................................4
Software Installation................................................5
Changing the Printer Setup...........................................6
Using Your Mouse.....................................................9
Telling TGA The Disk/Directory to Use for Data......................10
Using Colors........................................................11
Distribution Information............................................11
Did You Get Everything?.............................................13
Program Limits......................................................15
Getting Started.....................................................15
The Grading Assistant -- MAIN MENU..................................17
Your First Lesson...................................................18
Lesson 1 - Setting up a Grading File................................19
Lesson 2 - Defining The Grading Information.........................20
Lesson 3 - Entering Grades..........................................21
Normal Processing...................................................22
Entering and Editing Grades.........................................24
The Grading Assistant -- GRADING MENU...............................24
Choosing a Grade Averaging Method...................................26
Entering Class Description Information..............................27
Entering Student Names..............................................27
Entering Grading Information........................................28
Entering Grades.....................................................29
Special Feature - Additions to Final Grade Average..................30
Special Feature - Extra Points for Specific Grade Types.............30
Entering Scoring Information........................................31
The Grading Assistant -- SCORING MENU...............................31
Summary of Special Data Entry Keys..................................33
Displaying and Printing Reports.....................................34
The Grading Assistant -- MAIN REPORTS MENU..........................34
Current Period Grade Average Reports................................34
Current Period Reports Menu.........................................35
Entering Heading/Footing/Comments on the Interim Report.............36
Including/Excluding Students on Individual and Interim Reports......37
Saving Interim Report Student Names for Labels......................38
End-Of-Year Grading Reports.........................................38
Starting a New Grading Period.......................................39
The Grading Assistant -- END-OF-GRADING-PERIOD MENU.................40
DOS Utilities.......................................................42
The Grading Assistant -- UTILITY MENU...............................42
Detailed Example....................................................44
Graphing Your Grade Averages........................................48
The Grading Assistant -- GRAPHICS MENU..............................48
Printing a Copy of your Graph.......................................49
Student Information Records.........................................50
The Grading Assistant -- STUDENT INFORMATION MAIN MENU..............50
Loading/Editing Student Information.................................51
Loading Student Names from a Grading File...........................51
Editing Student Information.........................................52
Printing Student Information........................................52
Printing Gummed Labels..............................................52
Exporting Your Grades in DIF Format.................................53
Error Codes.........................................................53
Last Words..........................................................54
Use Agreement _____________
These diskettes (or Bulletin Board files) contain The Grading
Assistant (TGA), a program for your IBM compatible personal computer.
By using this program you are agreeing to the terms defined in this
section. Please read the following paragraphs carefully:
1. The Grading Assistant program and documentation are the property
of the author. Both are copyright (C) 1987-1991 by Jim Reid, and
all rights are reserved worldwide. Even though the program is
distributed through the SHAREWARE method, and it can be freely
copied within the limits of this agreement, there are still some
limitations to protect the integrity of the distribution of the
program and to support its future enhancements.
2. This program may not be copied or shared for use outside the
United States. Within the United States, you may make copies of
this diskette, give copies to your friends, and even upload TGA
(as a single compressed file) to an electronic bulletin board
service, provided that you in no way alter the contents of the ________
programs or documentation, and that all TGA programs and files
are included.
3. The author will not be liable for any damages under any __________________
circumstances resulting from your use of, or inability to use,
this program. The program is provided "as is", without either
expressed or implied warranty. The responsibility for determining
the accuracy of this program and the suitability to your needs
rests entirely with you.
4. You may not: distribute this program in connection with any other _______
product or service without a written distribution agreement from _______
the author; charge anything for copies of, or the use of, this
program other than a cost reimbursement fee (not to exceed $5)
for distributing it; modify the program or documentation in any
way; or distribute the documentation in a printed form without
written permission of the author.
5. On whatever computer this program is used productively, a
registered copy must be obtained from the program's author. You
may evaluate TGA for up to 30 days to determine its utility to ________
you. If you do not continue to use TGA after the evaluation
period, then you do not need to register. Continuing to use The
Grading Assistant after you have evaluated it requires you to ________
register it.
When you register TGA, you are supporting the past and future
development of this program. Send the $20 registration fee along with
your name and address on the Shareware Registration Form on the
following page. This will register your copy, and thus entitle you to
information about future releases as well as help should you run into
any problems using the program. Only by supporting SHAREWARE program
authors can you encourage them to provide low-cost, high quality
software.
Shareware Registration Form ___________________________
Please complete and return this registration card if you continue to
use The Grading Assistant (version 4.0) after your 30-day evaluation
of it.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Last Name First Initial
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Street Address or Post Office Box
----------------------------------------------------------------------
City State Zip Code
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Telephone Number (please include area code)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date of Registration Your brand/model of PC and printer
----------------------------------------------------------------------
How did you first learn about TGA?
Please enclose your check for $20, made out to Jim Reid.
and mail it to: The Grading Assistant
505 East Charlotte Street
Sterling, VA 22170
You will receive written confirmation of your software registration,
the latest version of the program, and instructions on how to get help
from the program's author if you run into difficulties.
Site license agreements are available to educational institutions.
THANK YOU FOR SUPPORTING THE SHAREWARE DISTRIBUTION SYSTEM
System Features _______________
The Grading Assistant was designed to help teachers record student
grades throughout a grading period and produce student and class
average reports whenever they are required. The Grading Assistant has
the following features:
1. GRADE CATEGORIES: You can define different categories of grades ________________
which you will score for each class. For example, a typical class
might have grades for daily work, homework, projects, tests, and
quizzes.
You can define the grading average percentages (weights) you want
each grade category to have for each class. For example, in your
Social Studies class you might want daily work to be 25% of the
final grade, homework 25%, projects 20%, tests 15%, and quizzes
15%.
You can change the grade categories and percentages at any time.
These can be the same for every class, or different for each one,
as you choose.
2. LETTER GRADES: The Grading Assistant computes both numerical and _____________
letter grade averages for students. The program uses a standard
letter grade scheme of "A" through "D" modified with "+" and "-",
and "F" for failing grades. If you want, you can change the
letter grades used. You can also define the numerical grade
ranges for each letter grade. For example, you might define an
"A" as any score over 95.
3. REPORTS: The Grading Assistant has all of the reports you will _______
need in a school year. The current grade average report shows for
each student in each class: final average as a numerical score,
final average as a letter grade, and student averages for up to
12 different categories of grades per class. It also shows the
class grade distribution counts by letter grade. (For example, 5
A's, 4 B's, and 6 C's.)
A special grades posting report makes it easy for you to post
student grades by class, showing grade averages by student
identifiers (such as Social Security numbers) rather than by
names to provide privacy.
The student interim grade report allows you to produce a listing
for each student whose current average is below a cut-off
numerical grade (such as 70). Every student, in every class you
specify, whose current grade average is below the reporting cut-
off grade will be listed along with their current grade average.
You might use this report to send home an interim note to the
parents of your students who are failing.
1 1
The class roster report lists the students in each of your
classes. This report might be useful to you for checking class
attendance or manually recording student grades.
The year-to-date grade average reports list for each student and
each class the overall average in each of the past grading
periods for this school year. An overall school year average is
shown for each student in each class. You might use this to
compute the final class grade average for your students at the
end of the school year.
There is also a grade average summary report that lists students
alphabetically, regardless of their class and subject. There is a
student grade summary report that lists the current grades for a
single student.
4. GRADING: If you wish, The Grading Assistant will automatically _______
drop one or more of the lowest scores for each student in a class
for a particular grade category. For example, you might use this
feature to drop the lowest two DAILY grades for each student in
your Spelling class. You can also tell The Grading Assistant to
add one or more points to the final average for selected students
during the grading period. This feature is useful when you give
extra credit assignments, or if your school has a minimum grade
score.
The grade presentation menu resembles a typical electronic
spreadsheet, and it operates in much the same way. You enter rows
and columns of grades for each class. Rows are students; columns
are individual grades. You supply the information and The Grading
Assistant does the rest.
The Grading Assistant has a special data entry feature which
makes it easy to key in a new set of grades for your students.
You just position the cursor to a new (empty) column of grades
and press one key (F4). The Grading Assistant prompts you to
enter the grades for each student in the class, one by one. A
special feature of this method of data entry is that you can use
TGA as a scoring key. For example, suppose you gave a quiz with
23 questions of equal value. Normally, you would have to grade
the quizzes and use a scoring key to tell you that - for example
- a student who answered 21 correct gets a grade of 91. With TGA,
you can simply tell the program that a perfect score is 23 and
enter the number of questions that each student got right. TGA
will translate each entry into the equivalent percentile score.
(You enter 21, TGA stores 91.)
One of the common problems of grading programs is that you often
need to list student averages during a grading period, before the ______
students have grades for every category you have defined for that
class. For example, your students may not have completed a class
PROJECT, yet the PROJECT grade is worth 25% of their final grade.
What do you do? The Grading Assistant handles this problem by
substituting for the missing grade category the average of the
2 2
first non-zero grade category, perhaps the DAILY grade. For
example, if the student has a DAILY average of 92, but no PROJECT
grade, then The Grading Assistant substitutes the DAILY average
for the PROJECT average for that student. This is useful for
computing interim grade averages during the grading period.
5. UTILITIES: The Grading Assistant has several special features for _________
setting up new grading sheets at the start of a new grading
period. One feature will save the grading period averages (for
use in computing the year-to-date student grade average). Another
feature will keep the current student and class information, but
remove the grades from the previous grading period so that you
are ready to enter new grades for this period.
There are also features that allow you to list the names of
grading files, rename them, delete them, and make copies of them.
Another feature will make backup copies of all your data files.
While these same functions are also available in DOS, The Grading
Assistant eliminates the need to learn and use DOS to maintain
your grading files.
6. GRAPHICS: If your PC has graphics capability, you can use a ________
special program named TGAGRAPH to display your current grade
averages, or the grade averages from a previous grading period,
as a simple bar graph.
7. STUDENT INFORMATION: An optional program named TGAINFO can be ___________________
used to maintain a record of each student's address and telephone
number. You can use this program in conjunction with the Interim
Grade Report to generate mailing labels for students whose
parents are to be mailed a report of their child's grades. You
can also use this program to keep a handy student information
record.
8. GRADE AVERAGING METHODS: TGA supports two different types of _______________________
grade averaging methods. Under the first method, grade averaging, _______________
you define one or more weighted categories of grades. Each grade
is recorded against a 100-point maximum, and collectively the
grades in a category are averaged, then multiplied by the
category weight. Using the second method, point averaging, each _______________
grade can represent one or more total grade points. To compute
the average, TGA computes the ratio of total points earned
against total points possible. The point averaging method does
not use grade category weights.
If you are already quite familiar with your PC and you are experienced
in installing and learning new PC programs, you may wish to skip the
rest of the introductory material and go right to the section entitled
"Getting Started." The next few sections describe the basic PC
functions needed to install and run this program.
3 3
System Requirements ___________________
To use The Grading Assistant, you need an IBM or 100% compatible
personal computer (PC) with:
* at least 400K of free memory (called RAM, for random access
memory) in which TGA can run;
* either two floppy diskette drives, or one floppy drive and
one hard disk drive;
* IBM or Microsoft DOS (disk operating system) version 3.0 or
later; (NOTE: You are welcome to try TGA under DOS 2.11.
Some of my customers run with it without problems, but I
cannot guarantee that it will run. The reason for this is
that on some "clones" - IBM-compatible PCs, sometimes
referred to as MSDOS machines - the basic input/output
system (BIOS) is not completely compatible with IBM's BIOS.
If you experience unusual problems under DOS 2.11, please
try DOS 3.0 or higher.) and
* an Epson "FX" or compatible printer. (However, the program
can be configured to run with other printers by using the
TGAPRINT option described later in this documentation.)
Except for the TGAGRAPH program, which uses your PC's graphics
interface, all other TGA programs run in text mode, with 25 lines of
80 characters each. Virtually all PCs can support this mode. (Although
your EGA or VGA display can run in 43-line mode, or greater, TGA will
not work in any mode but 80x25.) TGA uses your DOS's features to
determine whether your PC uses a monochrome or color monitor. It
writes directly to your PC's display memory for speedy display. A few
PCs, primarily the earlier IBM clones that weren't quite IBM
compatible, may have trouble with this. If you seem to have problems
displaying TGA menus, this is probably the culprit. In some cases,
merely upgrading to DOS 3.1 or later will fix this.
TGA was designed to run on a minimally configured IBM compatible
system. Thus, this version of the program does not take any special
advantage of graphics, extended/expanded memory, math coprocessors,
laser printers, or other state-of-the-art PC capabilities. However, it
does recognize the presence of a color monitor and automatically
adjusts its display accordingly. TGA has been tested on both 'PC class
machines' (with 8086 and 8088 processors), 'AT class machines' (with
80286 processors), and 80386 processor machines. It has been tested
with CGA, Hercules, PC-3270, EGA, and VGA graphics cards/monitors.
TGA includes TGAGRAPH, a program which will display simple bar graphs
of current and prior grading period averages. If you have a PC with
graphics capability then you can use this program. TGAGRAPH supports
the following graphics interfaces: CGA, MCGA, EGA, VGA, Hercules,
AT&T 400 line, IBM 8514, and 3270 PC. Refer to the section on TGAGRAPH
at the end of this documentation for more details.
4 4
Software Installation _____________________
The Grading Assistant is delivered in a compressed format for easier
handling. That permits the delivery of four diskettes worth of
software and documentation on two floppy diskettes. The TGA
distribution diskette #1 has an installation program (INSTALL.EXE)
which you should run to decompress the software and documentation
before trying to run The Grading Assistant. (If you are already very
familiar with PC compression programs, then you'll notice that the
excellent free-ware LHARC program is used to do the file compression
and decompression. If the need arises, you can use LHARC to view or
decompress any of TGA's *.LZH files.)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
IF YOU PLAN TO RUN TGA USING TWO FLOPPY DISK DRIVES
Before you start, you need either one blank, formatted high
density diskette (1.2M or more) or four blank, formatted dual
density (360K) diskettes. If you don't have the formatted
diskette(s), use the DOS FORMAT command to prepare them. (See
your DOS Manual for help.)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
If you are installing from diskette, you need at least 900K of free ___________________________________
disk space. Put the TGA distribution diskette #1 in your A: drive and
enter the following commands:
A:
INSTALL
If you are installing from a downloaded Bulletin Board file, ___________________________________________________________
decompress the distribution file(s) (using whatever decompression
program the Bulletin Board used to compress it) into a hard disk
directory, change to that directory, and enter:
INSTALL
In either case, the INSTALL program will copy TGA onto floppy
diskettes or your hard disk. Generally, if you are installing it for
use on a floppy disk system, you will install TGA on the "B" drive,
and in the root (\) directory. For hard disk installation, you will
generally install it on the "C" drive, and in the "\TGA" directory. If
you had previously installed TGA on your hard disk and wish to
reinstall the new version in the same directory, the installation
program will delete the earlier version of the TGA software before
copying the new version. Naturally, any grading files you have will be
left intact and unharmed.
Next, you need to print your file of documentation. To do that, ready
your PC printer (power it off, adjust the paper, and power it on). Use
the DOS PRINT command (or any similar print utility) to print the file
named TGA.DOC. [If you installed TGA on your hard disk, then you will
find the documentation file on the disk and path where you installed
the TGA software. If you installed TGA on four standard density (360K)
5 5
floppy diskettes, the documentation file will be on the fourth
diskette created by INSTALL.]
Printing the documentation will take a while to complete because it
prints about 60 sheets of paper. But you just can't expect to run the
program without reading the manual. If you have the patience to read
the documentation on your monitor, you might want to try Vern Buerg's
excellent shareware text display program (LIST.COM), available from
Mr. Buerg directly or from most Bulletin Boards and Shareware
Distributors.
Please note: The TGA.DOC documentation file uses underlining. Your
PC's printer needs to be in the mode which does not do an automatic
linefeed on a carriage return. If the printed manual does not seem to
be underlining properly (in other words, the underline is on a
separate line below the text) then your PC is probably doing an
automatic linefeed after the carriage return. This option can be
changed on most printers, either through resetting the switch or
console settings, or through sending the printer a command. Check your
printer manual for the specifics on your printer.
Unless you are already familiar with TGA, read at least the first part
of the TGA Manual. Then, return to your computer and work through a
few of the examples. Voila! You're ready to use TGA for the real
thing.
NOTE: Keep the original Grading Assistant distribution diskettes in a ____
safe place.
Changing the Printer Setup __________________________
TGA is configured to run with an Epson FX or compatible printer
attached to your primary parallel port (referred to as LPT1). If your
printer is not compatible with an Epson FX or uses a different
parallel port, don't worry. TGA has a special feature (the TGAPRINT
program) that lets you tell TGA about the printer controls and port
your printer uses instead. To do this, first get out your printer
manual and turn to the sections that tell you about software printer
commands. Most of these will be two or more control characters, such
as the ESCAPE and "P" characters to tell your printer to use the Pica
font. You will need to know the exact control characters (expressed as
decimal integers) that your printer uses to set: Pica font, page
length, line spacing, left and right margins, and any other special
printer characteristics you need.
If you have a dual floppy disk system, put the installed TGA diskette _____________________________________ _________
#4 in drive A: and enter these commands:
A:
TGAPRINT
Follow the instructions to establish your printer codes. Next, put the
installed TGA diskette #1 in drive B: and enter: _________
6 6
COPY A:PRINTER.TGA B:
Repeat this step for installed TGA diskette #2 and #3, placing each in _________
turn in the B: drive and executing the COPY command.
If you have a hard disk system, switch to the disk and path that ______________________________
contains TGA (use the DOS CD command) and enter: TGAPRINT
Regardless of which type of computer system you have, you will be
prompted to enter your printer's control character codes to set the
following:
- 66 lines per page (the normal size for 8-1/2 x 11 paper)
- Pica font (10 letters per inch, fixed character size)
- left margin of 0 (on some printers, this must be "1")
- right margin of 80
- 6 vertical lines per vertical inch (the normal print size) and
- any other special printer characteristics you always want to use
(such as bold printing). This one is optional; you may not need
to use it.
You will also be asked whether your printer uses continuous sheets of
paper (the typical case) or single sheets (such as an option of the
IBM ProPrinter and some letter quality printers).
Finally, you will be asked which of the three parallel ports (LPT1,
LPT2, or LPT3) has the printer TGA should use.
As you are running TGAPRINT, you must respond to each of the six
prompts by typing zero or more sets of decimal integers. (NOTE: You do __
not enter the hexadecimal value for printer characters. You enter the ___
decimal value.) Press ESCAPE for each line when there are no further
numbers to enter for it. For example, to enter the printer command
ESCAPE + "P" (for Epson's Pica fonts) you would type:
27 <then press ENTER>
80 <then press ENTER>
<press ESCAPE>
because "27" is the decimal code for ESCAPE, "80" is the decimal code
for "P", and the final ESCAPE signals that there are no more codes to
enter for this printer command. This may seem a little confusing, but
the owners manual for your printer should help you pick the right
codes.
After entering these printer control codes, TGAPRINT will ask you two
more questions. (1) Does your printer use continuous-feed paper, or
must you feed it one sheet at a time? Respond by pressing 'C' for
continuous-feed paper, or 'S' for single-sheet feed. (2) To which of
7 7
the parallel ports is your printer attached? Respond by pressing the
number (1, 2, or 3) of the parallel port.
After running TGAPRINT, you will be asked if you want to save the
changes you just made. You respond with Y--for yes, or N--for no, and
the program reacts accordingly. TGAPRINT can be run as many times as
you wish. Each time you run it, it starts with the printer codes you
saved the last time. All of these printer codes are stored in a small
file named PRINTER.TGA. If you ever wish to eliminate the PRINTER.TGA
file (to use TGA's default printer controls), you can erase it safely
because you can always rebuild PRINTER.TGA by re-running TGAPRINT.
If you do not run TGAPRINT, then TGA assumes that your printer uses
the following control commands:
+------------------------------------------------------+
Type of printer control Command | |
|------------------------------------------------------|
66 lines per page 27, 67, 66 | |
Pica font (10 cpi) 27, 80 | |
Left margin = 0 27, 108, 0 | |
Right margin = 80 27, 81, 80 | |
6 lines per vertical inch 27, 65, 12 | |
Continuous-feed paper | |
Printer connected to LPT1 | |
+------------------------------------------------------+
Please note that many printers use different control commands than
these. If you notice that the first page of a series of printed
reports has extraneous characters (perhaps "A", "B", "C", "P", or "Q")
then your printer differs from the Epson FX standard. In that case,
you will need to run TGAPRINT to properly configure TGA for your
printer.
If your reports seem to break for pages incorrectly, you may need to
run TGAPRINT to set the "6 lines per vertical inch" properly. The "12"
in the Epson FX command means 12/72 = 1/6 inch per line. Many printers
use 60ths, rather than 72nds, for this command. In that case, you
would be printing at 12/60 = 1/5 inch per line, and you might
experience page overflows on your printed reports. You would correct
this by changing the 6 lines per inch printer command to be "12, 65,
10". Some printers also use "27, 50" for 6 lines per inch.
If you wish to print copies of screen graphics displayed using the
TGAGRAPH program, you must either have a graphics screen-print program
that works with your display and adapter, or your PC must support the
dot matrix graphics commands used by either the Epson 9-pin printers
(which many 24-pin Epson-compatible printers also support) or the IBM
ProPrinter 9-pin printers. Due to the variety of printer graphics
formats in use, only these two printer families are supported in this
version of TGAGRAPH.
8 8
Using Your Mouse ________________
The Grading Assistant recognizes your Microsoft or compatible
(Logitech, for example) mouse. Your mouse driver (the MOUSE.COM
program or MOUSE.SYS) should have already been loaded before you run
TGA. TGA supports either keystrokes, mouse movement and button clicks,
or a mixture of both. The following section describes how to use your
mouse with TGA. Thereafter in this document, no references are made to
mice -- even though your mouse will work with everything in TGA.
The first thing to know is that TGA recognizes mouse movement any time
the mouse cursor is visible on the screen. During the entry of
information in response to a specific prompt, the mouse is disabled.
Press the left mouse button (meaning a press and release) to "select"
the item on which the mouse cursor is resting. Where it makes logical
sense, selecting an item will perform the same function as though you
had highlighted it with the keyboard cursor, then pressed ENTER.
Press the right button to "quit" or "escape" from the current
activity. This has the same effect as if you pressed the ESCAPE key.
Press both the left and right buttons simultaneously to display TGA's
pop-up help menu. This has the same effect as if you pressed the F1
help key.
TGA has two basic types of menus in which the mouse is useful. The
typical "activity menu", such as the TGA Main Menu, simply has a list
of actions. You can move the mouse cursor to hilight the desired
action. Clicking the left button selects and executes the hilighted
action. The Main Menu, End-of-Grading-Period Menu, and Utility Menu
are all "activity menus". The mouse cursor is invisible on these
menus, but the hilighted cursor bar shows you where the mouse is.
The other type of TGA menu typically has a variety of places in which
you can enter and display information. The Grading Menu and Scoring
Menu are examples of this type. In these menus, the mouse cursor will
be visible as a solid, non-blinking block. As you move the mouse, the
mouse cursor moves around the screen in a similar manner. When you
move the mouse to a data entry location and click the left button, TGA
allows you to enter data in that area. Or, if you move the mouse
cursor to one of the action key definitions at the bottom of the menu
and click the left button, TGA will execute the action as though you
had pressed that action key. For menus in which the amount of data
that can be displayed is larger than the display screen, you can move
the mouse cursor to the left, top, right, or bottom edge of the menu
area and click the left mouse button. TGA will respond as though you
had pressed the corresponding Back Tab (mouse cursor on left edge),
Page Up (mouse cursor on top edge), Tab (mouse cursor on right edge),
or Page Down (mouse cursor on bottom edge).
The best way to learn what you can do with the mouse is to simply move
it and click the buttons while in a TGA menu. If you click the button
in an undefined area of the menu, TGA will simply ignore it.
9 9
TGA has been tested with both the Microsoft two-button mouse and the
Logitech three-button mouse. If your brand of mouse is not
sufficiently compatible with the Microsoft standard driver, or if you
have an old version of the mouse driver, then TGA may have problems
handling your mouse. In that case, you can either contact the vendor
of your mouse for an updated driver, or you can use the normal cursor
and keyboard keys rather than your mouse. The presence of a mouse on
your system in no way prevents you from using the normal keystrokes
available to people without a mouse.
The rest of this documentation will not make reference to using a
mouse because it makes the manual much harder to read if every section ____
must describe how to execute commands with and without a mouse. But
mouse fans take heart; TGA gives you full support anyway.
Telling TGA The Disk/Directory to Use for Data ______________________________________________
The Grading Assistant is like most PC programs. It presumes that the
data files it processes (that is, your grading information files) are
located in the "current DOS directory." So, if you don't tell TGA
anything to the contrary, the program looks for grade files on the
same disk and in the same directory as your program file. However, if
you're familiar with DOS then you know that you can establish a "PATH"
statement (usually in your AUTOEXEC.BAT program) to tell DOS where to
look for programs. If you are running DOS version 3.0 or later and the
disk/path that contains TGA is in your PATH statement, then you can
start TGA from almost anywhere by simply typing the program name. TGA
will determine where the program is stored on your system and change
to that directory first. If you are running DOS version 2.1, then DOS
itself does not support the ability for TGA to determine its disk/path
location unless it is executed from the current disk/path.
For a typical floppy disk system, DOS will look first in the "root
directory" of your primary diskette drive ("A:\"). For a hard disk
system, this is usually the TGA subdirectory of your primary hard disk
drive ("C:\TGA"). However, many people like to keep their data files
on a different disk or in a different directory than their programs.
This makes it easier to backup the data files without also backing up
the programs.
There are two ways for you to tell TGA where to find your data files.
One way is to specify the disk drive letter and path when you define
your grading files in the Scoring Menu (in the main TGA menu). If, for
example, you entered "B:\1ENGL" as a grading file name in the Scoring
Menu, then TGA would look for a grading file named "1ENGL" stored in
the root directory of your "B:" diskette.
Another way for you to tell TGA about your data disk and directory is
to identify it when you start the program. This is the easiest way.
When you execute The Grading Assistant, you can name the desired data
disk and directory on the command line. The DOS command would look
like this:
10 10
TGA disk/path _________
Where disk/path is the standard DOS file path. For example, you might _________
begin executing TGA by entering the following command:
TGA B:\
The result is that TGA would look for your data files on the "B:" disk
and in the root ("\") directory. If you give TGA an invalid disk/path
name, it will simply ignore it and use the program disk/path instead.
Either way of defining the location of your data files is OK. The
second way is probably easier, though. You can also change the data
file disk/path during a TGA session by going to the TGA DOS Utility
Menu and selecting the menu item to change directories. The main TGA
menu always tells you the name of the current data disk/path.
Regardless of where TGA finds its own programs and your data files,
when the program ends, you will remain in the DOS directory where you
originally started.
Using Colors ____________
TGA does its best to "guess" about your PC's display adapter and
monitor. For most standard equipment, TGA's guess will be the right
one. But for some unusual systems, such as an adapter that is capable
of displaying color but is connected to a monochrome monitor, you may
need to tell TGA which type of system you have. So, in addition to
telling TGA your data disk/path on the command line, you can also pass
a "switch" that tells TGA about your display system. You tell TGA
either "/C" for a color system or "/M" for a monochrome system. Here
are examples of valid parameters:
TGA C:\TGA /C Tells TGA to use C:\TGA for your data
files, and to force TGA to treat your PC
as having a color display system.
TGA /M Tells TGA to use the current directory
for your data files, and to force TGA to
treat your PC as having a monochrome
system.
TGA D:\GRADES Tells TGA to use D:\GRADES for your data
files, and to "guess" your display
system.
Distribution Information ________________________
The Grading Assistant is not "public domain software" (that is, ___
software donated to the public for free use). It is, instead,
"shareware" (that is, copyright software which users may evaluate for
free, but they must pay for it if they continue to use it). You may
11 11
try this program without obligation or cost and evaluate it for your
use. If you decide to keep the software or continue to use it after a
30-day evaluation period, you must register your copy with the ____
program's author by sending in the registration fee and form at the
front of this document. If you do not intend to continue using the
software, simply stop using it.
If you aren't familiar with the shareware concept, this paragraph
gives you a quick summary. You wouldn't buy a new car without test
driving it first, but many commercial software companies ask you to
buy their programs before you use them. Somehow, that doesn't seem
fair. So the concept of shareware was designed to enable you to try
the program first, to evaluate it at your leisure, and then to pay for
it if you decide to use it. Shareware is based on trust; only you will
know if you don't pay for what you use. But when you consider that
shareware is typically very inexpensive and brings you programs that
otherwise would be too expensive to be marketable, paying for it is
just good sense. The alternative is to deal with the companies that
make you pay higher prices up front.
There are a variety of programs that masquerade as shareware, but
aren't. One category is the demonstration. This is a nonfunctional _____________
program that shows you what the program can do, but its only purpose
is to be an advertisement for the product. Another category is called
(by its detractors) crippleware. This is software which is incomplete. ___________
The crippleware author wishes to give you enough of a product to
evaluate it, but crucial portions of the program (perhaps the ability
to store more than 20 records) are omitted to force you to pay for it
before it is fully functional. A third category is annoyware. It is _________
shareware that periodically displays messages, delays processing,
stops running, or annoys you in other ways until you register the
program to receive a version without the annoying side effects.
The Grading Assistant is true shareware. It is fully functional; it ____
has no annoying features to remind you to register. It is priced so
inexpensively that there is no reason not to register it and receive
both the current version and future support from the author. (Try
finding even trivial commercial software products for $20.) Some
software surveys indicate that less than ten percent of the people who
use shareware actually pay for it. That's a shame, since many hours of
development go into shareware, and authors deserve to be compensated
for their work.
These diskettes and the programs and documentation on them are not
copy protected (that is, designed or written in such a way that it is
difficult to make copies of them). There are no "time bombs" which
make the program self-destruct after a set number of uses. The
author's purposes in offering this program through the SHAREWARE
distribution method are to reach a wider audience of PC users and to
offer this quality software product to you at a reasonable price. $20
is a small price to pay for the hours of work you will save if you use
The Grading Assistant to calculate your grades.
12 12
OK, end of advertisement. It's up to you to evaluate TGA and register
if you continue use it after a 30-day evaluation period.
Did You Get Everything? _______________________
TGA is normally distributed either by shareware distribution firms,
such as PC-SIG or Peoples Choice, or through electronic Bulletin Board
services. If you received TGA from the author or a shareware firm, you
should have received two dual-sided, dual density (DSDD) diskettes
containing both your TGA software and documentation in a compressed
format. The first step is to install the TGA program. Display or print
the README.TGA file on the TGA distribution diskette for instructions
on how to do this. If you installed your files for use on a dual
floppy disk system with dual density (DSDD) diskettes, you will now
have four new diskettes. If you installed TGA on your hard disk or on
a high density diskette, you will have all of the TGA software and
documentation on a single disk and directory.
Your documentation file is stored in a special format (sometimes
called TTY, for teletype) ready to be printed on almost any text
printer. The only files you absolutely need to run The Grading
Assistant are "TGA.EXE" and "TGA.HLP". If you wish to run the graphics
programs, you will need "TGAGRAPH.EXE", "TGAGRAPH.HLP", and the
appropriate graphics interface file ("*.BGI") for your PC. To run the
Student Information programs, you will need "TGAINFO.EXE" and
"TGAINFO.HLP". To change printer default information, you will need
"TGAPRINT.EXE".
The following is a description of the primary TGA files you will find
before and after installation:
Files on Distribution Diskette #1 _________________________________
INSTALL.EXE This program copies TGA onto a floppy or hard disk PC
system.
LHARC.EXE This is the copyright (C) product of Haruyasu
Yoshizaki. It is used to decompress the TGA files on
the distribution diskette. The INSTALL.EXE program uses
LHARC. You do not need it to use TGA after it is
installed. (This file is also on Diskette #2.)
TGA.LZH This compressed file contains the following two files: _______
TGA.EXE This is the main program for The Grading Assistant.
TGA.HLP This is the compressed Help file for TGA.
13 13
TGAGRAPH.LZH This compressed file contains the following three file ____________
groups:
TGAGRAPH.EXE This program displays simple bar graphs of your current
grade averages, or the grade averages for a single
prior grading period. TGAGRAPH is optional, and it is
only useful if your PC has a supported graphics card
and monitor.
TGAGRAPH.HLP This is the compressed Help file for TGAGRAPH.
*.BGI These are a series of graphics interface files. They
are the copyright products of Borland International,
and they are included with The Grading Assistant under
the terms of Borland's license with the TGA author. You
need the BGI file which is appropriate for your PC's
graphics card/monitor if you plan to run the TGAGRAPH
program.
Files on Distribution Diskette #2 _________________________________
README.TGA This is a short file of information about how to
install and use The Grading Assistant.
WHATSNEW.TGA This is a short file of information about changes in
the program with each recent version.
TGAINFO.LZH This compressed file contains the following two files: ___________
TGAINFO.EXE This is a program which allows you to maintain an
information record for each student. The record
contains the name of the student's parents, the
student's mailing address, and telephone numbers for
the parents.
TGAINFO.HLP This is the compressed Help file for TGAINFO.
TGA2DIFF.LZH This compressed file contains the following two files: ____________
TGA2DIFF.EXE This is a program which allows you to export your
grading file data for use in another PC program. The
output file format is the data interchange file format
(DIFF).
TGA2DIFF.HLP This is the compressed Help file for TGA2DIFF.
14 14
TGADOC.LZH This compressed file contains the following two files: __________
TGAPRINT.EXE This is an optional program to define your printer's
codes if they are not fully compatible with the Epson
FX printer.
TGA.DOC This is the documentation for the programs. Display it
on your PC or print it on your printer.
Program Limits ______________
The limits of The Grading Assistant program are:
* up to 12 grading periods per grading year
* up to 15 different classes per grading period
* up to 45 students per class
up to 42 grades per class, per grading period
* up to 12 different categories of grades, each with its own grade
average percentage, per class. For example, the grade categories
for a 1st period English class might be:
15% Writing Assignments
25% Spelling and Vocabulary Assignments
25% Tests and Quizzes
35% Special Projects
* the program assumes a letter grading system of "A", "B", "C",
"D", and "F", where every letter grade except "F" can be modified
by a "+" or "-" indicator.
* the program supports both grade averaging (using weighted
categories) and point averaging.
* the program assumes a 100-point grading scale, although
individual grade scores can range from 0 through 999.
Getting Started _______________
Before you try The Grading Assistant, you should first know how to get
out of it. The main Grading Assistant menu has six options from which
you can select. One of them is ESCAPE. Pressing the ESCAPE key from
the main menu will end the program. From other menus, such as the
GRADING and SCORING programs (the first two items in the main TGA
menu), you press the ESCAPE key to end the program and return to the
main menu.
In general, ESCAPE is a good key to try when you want to stop what you
are doing in The Grading Assistant and return to an earlier menu, or
15 15
to DOS. If you are being prompted by TGA to enter some information,
simply pressing the ENTER key without typing any data will often
signal TGA that you want to exit. If ESCAPE fails to get you out and
you can't figure out what else to do, try pressing the Control,
Alternate, and Delete keys simultaneously. Those three keys pressed
together will restart your computer. Or, if you're truly desperate,
press the re-boot button (many PCs have these on the front of the
chassis) or turn off the power switch on your PC. Each of these is
successively more drastic. You may actually lose some of the data you
had keyed but not yet saved, depending on what went wrong. But please
be assured that in hundreds of hours of actual use and testing of The
Grading Assistant program there has not been a single instance in
which TGA destroyed any data.
From most of the TGA menus, you can press the F1 (HELP) key to display
a short help message. This message will "pop-up" over the current
screen. Use the Page Up/Down keys to view the text, which will usually
be one to three screens of information. Press ESCAPE when you are
through viewing the help and want to return to the menu.
To begin The Grading Assistant, you must first be in DOS mode. "Boot"
(that is, start-up) your PC as you normally do. On a floppy disk
system, you boot the PC by putting your DOS disk in the "A:" drive and
turning the power on. On a hard disk system, you boot the PC by making
sure your floppy disk doors are open, and powering on the PC.
If you have a floppy disk system, remove and put aside your DOS ________________________________
diskette, and insert The Grading Assistant installed diskette #1 in _________
your "A:" drive after you see the "A>" prompt on the screen. [The "A:"
drive is usually the one on top, or on the left, if you have two
diskette drives.]
If you have a hard disk system, change your hard disk subdirectory to ______________________________
the one with The Grading Assistant installed in it. For example, if
you installed The Grading Assistant program on your "C:" drive and in
the "TGA" directory, then when you see the "C>" prompt on the screen,
you should enter:
CD \TGA
Regardless of whether you have a floppy or hard disk system, to start
The Grading Assistant, type:
TGA disk/path colorswitch _________ ___________
(The disk/path is optional and allows you to tell TGA the disk and _________
path of your grading files. The colorswitch is also optional, and it ___________
can be "/C" for color or "/M" for monochrome display.) The PC screen
will clear and The Grading Assistant main menu will appear:
16 16
The Grading Assistant -- MAIN MENU __________________________________
+----------------------------------+
Main Menu | |
+----------------------------------+
+----------------------------------+
Enter or change class grades | |
Define grade computation methods | |
Reports menu | |
End-of-Grading-Period menu | |
Utility menu | |
+----------------------------------+
You can use the up/down cursor arrows (or your mouse) to select the
desired option, then press ENTER (or click the left mouse button) to
execute it. Or, you can press the highlighted letter (often the first
letter) of the desired menu item to perform the specified function.
Press ESCAPE to quit and return to DOS mode. The following is a
summary of each menu item:
#1 This is used either to create a new class grading file or to
enter, change, or delete grades in an existing file. This is the
action you will use to enter and edit student grades for your
classes. The information in these grading files is used when you
display or print the current grade average reports.
#2 This is used to enter or edit the grade average computation
percentages for each of your grade files. It also allows you to
define the numerical grade ranges which correspond to each letter
grade. The information in this file is used to compute class
averages when you display or print the current grade average
reports.
#3 This is used to jump to the Reports Menu. All of The Grading
Assistant reports can be found in that menu. There are so many
reports that they cannot fit on a single menu.
#4 This is used to jump to the End-of-Grading-Period Menu. That menu
allows you to save the grade averages for you students at the end
of one grading period, while you prepare your grading files for
the start of the new grading period.
#5 This is used to jump to the Utility Menu. From that menu you can:
erase files, rename files, copy files, make backup copies of your
data, restore your data files from earlier backup copies, change
your data disk/path, list the names of files in the current data
directory, or temporarily exit to DOS.
(Notice that the line at the bottom of the TGA main menu display tells
you the name of the current disk and path on which TGA will look for
your grading files.)
17 17
Your First Lesson _________________
Let's begin by drawing an analogy between TGA and your current
(manual) grade book. You start the school year with several classes.
In your grade book you keep each class in a separate section, often
separated by tabs or dividers. With TGA you will keep each class in a
separate grading file on your disk. (Five classes means five grading
files.)
What information does your grade book have? It probably has the class
subject, the class period, your name, the names of all of the class
students, and spaces to record attendance and grades. With TGA your
grading files will keep the same sort of information. You can even use
TGA to print a class roster for taking attendance.
How do you begin the school year by getting your grade book ready? You
probably start by filling out the information for each class. You
enter the subject, period, and other information on grade sheets for
each class. You write or type in the names of students for each class,
and you decide how to score each class. With TGA you do the same
things. You use a program called the Grading Menu to enter information
for each class. You use a program called the Scoring Menu to tell TGA
which classes you have, how you will score class averages, and how TGA
should use numerical grade ranges to assign letter grades (for
example, you might tell TGA that a grade in the range 94-96 is an
"A").
During the school grading period you give assignments and grade
papers. Unfortunately, TGA can't help you very much there. For
assignments and grading papers you are on your own. But instead of
entering your grades manually into a grade book, you can enter the
grades for each class into your PC using the TGA Grading Menu. Then,
at any time during the grading period, you can either print a report
or display on the screen the current grade averages for any or all
classes. You can look at the grades for just one class if you want, or
for all of them. Naturally, TGA shows you the grade averages for each
of your grading categories (you defined these earlier using the
Scoring Menu). TGA shows you the overall grade average for each
student, both as a numerical score and a letter grade. It also gives
you a breakdown by class of how many students made A's, B's, C's, D's,
and F's.
If you teach grade school and need to send home interim reports to the
parents, TGA can help you here, too. All you have to do is tell TGA
the numerical grade below which you want an interim report, and it
will print a short note for each student whose grade average is below
that score. TGA even has an option that lets you write individual
comments for each student if you wish. You can also use the TGAINFO
program in conjunction with the Interim Report to print gummed labels
for mailing your reports to your students' parents.
At the end of the grading period you normally get out your trusty
calculator and a lot of scratch paper to do the grade averages. But
with TGA, all it takes is pressing a few keys and you have complete
18 18
grade average reports. This is where TGA really saves you a great deal
of time and effort. At the end of the grading period, you use TGA to
save the averages for that period because TGA will compute year-to-
date and end-of-year grade averages for each class as well.
Now that you've heard the basics, you have a choice. You can work
through a step by step set of three exercises, or you can skip to the
next section. If you're the sort of person who is comfortable with PC
programs, skip the rest of this section and pick up the reading at the
"Normal Processing" heading. If you want to work through a few
lessons, read on.
Let's start at the beginning for your first lesson. In this lesson,
whenever the instructions tell you to Enter something, that means you _____
should type the letters shown and then press the Enter key. On some
PCs this key is labeled ENTER or it has a downward left arrow on it.
When the instructions tell you to Press something, that means you _____
should only press the key(s) shown. No need to depress the ENTER key
when the instructions say "Press".
Your PC has many special keys. The ones you will use most often are
the Escape key, the ENTER key, the INSERT key, the DELETE key, and the
function keys (abbreviated F1 through F10). When you see these keys
referenced in the following example, they mean you should press that
key. For example, when you see "ESCAPE" then you press the Escape key;
you don't type the letters E S C A P E.
Lesson 1 - Setting up a Grading File ____________________________________
In this lesson you will learn how to set up a single grading file,
which we will name SAMPLE. We will assume that, for a hard disk
system, your TGA programs and data are on the C: disk in the \TGA
path. The SAMPLE file is for Ms. Smith's first period English class,
which has only five students (doesn't she wish!). This lesson shows
you the skills you need to set up grading files for each of your own
classes.
Start The Grading Assistant: ___________________________
(on a floppy disk system) 1. Enter TGA TGA
(on a hard disk system) 1a. Enter CD C:\TGA CD C:\TGA
1b. Enter TGA TGA
Select the Grading Menu: 2. Press ENTER ENTER _______________________
Name the grading file: 3a. Enter SAMPLE SAMPLE _____________________
3b. Press Y Y
Enter the class description: 4a. Enter Ms. Smith Ms. Smith ___________________________
4b. Enter English English
4c. Enter 1st 1st
4d. Enter G G
19 19
Enter the class students: 5a. Enter Able, Mary Able, Mary ________________________
5b. Enter Baker, Bill Baker, Bill
5c. Enter Carson, Susan Carson, Susan
5d. Enter Davidson, Allen Davidson, Allen
5e. Enter Elder, Dana Elder, Dana
5f. Press Enter Enter
Note: After each student's name you
will be prompted to enter an
optional student identifier.
Exit from the Grading Menu: 6a. Press Escape Escape __________________________
6b. Press Y Y
6c. Press N N
Exit from the TGA program: 7. Press ESCAPE ESCAPE _________________________
Lesson 2 - Defining The Grading Information ___________________________________________
In this lesson we will define our criteria for computing class
averages for the SAMPLE grading file. We have decided to use the grade
averaging method, with weighted categories. Daily grades and test
grades will each account for one-half (50%) of the final average for
each student. To be generous, though, we have decided to drop the
lowest daily grade before we average. You would use the same set of
skills to define the grade computation for each of your own classes.
Start The Grading Assistant: 1. See Lesson 1 ___________________________
Select the Scoring Menu: 2a. Press down arrow down arrow _______________________
2b. Press ENTER ENTER
Enter the grading file name: 3. Press Y to load created grade Y ___________________________
file names
Define the grading categories: 4a. Press F1 F1 _____________________________
4b. Enter DAILY DAILY
4c. Enter 50 50
4d. Enter 1 1
4e. Enter TEST TEST
4f. Enter 50 50
4g. Enter 0 0
4h. Press ESCAPE ESCAPE
Define Letter Grade Ranges: 5a. Press F2 F2 __________________________
5b. Enter grade letters/ranges
Exit from the Scoring Menu: 6a. Press Escape Escape __________________________
6b. Press Y Y
Exit from the TGA program: 7. See Lesson 1 _________________________
20 20
Lesson 3 - Entering Grades __________________________
In this lesson we will enter two sets of grades for Ms. Smith's
English class (remember that we named the grading file "SAMPLE"). The
first set is for a daily grade, verb worksheet, given on October 1,
1988. The second set of grades is for a pop quiz given on October 2,
1988. Both were graded using a 100% base. These are the skills you
would use to enter grades for students in each of your own classes.
Start The Grading Assistant: 1. See Lesson 1 ___________________________
Select the Grading Menu: 2. Press ENTER ENTER _______________________
Select the Grading File Name: 3. Enter SAMPLE SAMPLE ____________________________
Enter the first set of grades: 4a. Press F4 F4 _____________________________
4b. Press ENTER ENTER
4c. Enter 10/1/88 10/1/88
4d. Enter DAILY DAILY
4e. Enter Verb Worksheet Verb Worksheet
4f. Enter 93 93
4g. Enter 99 99
4h. Enter 87 87
4i. Enter 82 82
4j. Enter 100 100
4k. Listen for the "beep"
Enter the second set of grades: 5a. Press RIGHT ARROW RIGHT ARROW ______________________________
5b. Press F4 F4
5c. Press ENTER ENTER
5d. Enter 10/2/88 10/2/88
5e. Enter TEST TEST
5f. Enter Pop Quiz Pop Quiz
5g. Invent and Enter 5 grades
5h. Listen for the "beep"
Exit from the Grading Menu: 6. See Lesson 1 __________________________
Exit from the TGA Program: 7. See Lesson 1 _________________________
Congratulations! You have just completed the basic skills you will use
to enter TGA grades and define grade average computation. There is
much more to learn to master the details. But for now, you know the
basics.
Start TGA again and press item #3 from the main menu to select the
Reports Menu. From there, press ENTER to select the Current Grading
Period reports. Display your grade averages or print a copy on your PC
printer using the Averages by Class/Student report. (NOTE: If you ____
performed these lessons, then you created a dummy grading file named
SAMPLE which you may wish to erase. Use the DOS ERASE command to
delete SAMPLE. You will also need to erase or update your SCORING MENU
file (SCORING.!!!) to delete the SAMPLE file entry when you are ready
to enter your real grade file names and scoring criteria.)
21 21
Normal Processing _________________
The following describes the steps you will usually follow to run The
Grading Assistant:
1. The first time you use The Grading Assistant, you should select
menu item #1 from The Grading Assistant main menu to create a
grading file for each of your classes. For example, if you teach
four classes of French, then you will create four grading files -
- one for each class.
In DOS, a file identifier has the following format:
[drive:][path]filename[.extension]
The [drive:] identifies by letter the disk drive on which your
data will be kept. Normally, drive identifiers are "A:", "B:",
"C:", or "D:", where "A" and "B" drives are for floppy diskettes
and "C" and "D" are for hard disks. Note that the drive
identifier always ends in a colon (:). When you do not specify
which drive you wish, DOS assumes that you want to use the
current one (usually "A:" if you have a floppy disk system or
"C:" if you have a hard disk system). Entering the drive is
optional unless your current one is not the one you want TGA to
use.
The [path] identifies the disk directory, if any, on which your
data will be kept. Floppy disk systems rarely use paths; hard
disk systems almost always do. Disk paths must be specifically
created (by using the DOS MKDIR (make directory) command). The
path identifier always ends in a backslash (\). When you do not
specify which path you wish, DOS assumes that you want to use the
current one. On a floppy disk system, you rarely worry about
paths. On a hard disk system, you generally use paths to separate
different types of programs and data files. Entering the path is
optional unless your current one is not the one you want TGA to
use. In most cases, you will enter nothing for the TGA path.
The filename is a name of your own invention, composed of letters
and digits, from one to eight characters in length. You must
enter a filename since, without one, DOS has no way to know which
file you wish to use. Don't get too fancy with file names. The
simpler they are, the more likely you will remember them. For
example, FRENCH1 is a better name for a first period French class
than F1S102A (for French 1, Section 102-A). Entering a file name
is required. ________
The [.extension] identifies an optional extension to the file
name. It can be from one to three characters in length, and is
preceded by a period (.). Extensions let you group files of a
particular type. For example, you might give all of your grading
files an extension of ".GRD". Like the filename, the extension is
composed of letters and digits. The extension is not required. If
22 22
you leave it out, then DOS simply leaves the extension blank.
Normally, you can omit this for TGA data files.
The following are examples of valid DOS file identifiers: _____
B:SAMPLE
C:\DIR1\DIR1A\TEST
EXAMPLE.TGA
The following file identifiers are invalid: _______
B:ENGLISHLIT (Name longer than 8 letters)
C:\DIR1\ (No filename was given)
B:\DATA\LANG+ENG.GRD (Illegal character [+] in filename)
If you are not familiar with using DOS paths and disk
subdirectories, don't worry. You don't need them to run The
Grading Assistant. If you are uncomfortable with DOS file
identifiers then, to be safe, stick with simple file names of
eight characters or less, composed of letters (A-Z) and digits
(0-9). In any case, give your files names which are easy to
remember, such as "1SCIENCE" for "1st period Science." A grading
file consists of class information (teacher's name, the subject,
and the period), student names, and grade information (initially,
students have no grades).
2. During the current grading period, as students receive grades for
their work, you should enter student grades once a week (or once
a day if you are truly industrious) by selecting item #1 (the
Grading Menu) from the main menu. You enter student grades into
the Grading Menu much the same way as you enter grades manually
into your grade book.
3. When you are ready to print a report of grade averages for the
first time, you should first select item #2 (the Scoring Menu)
from the main menu. You will be asked if you want to
automatically load the names of grading files you created using
the Grading Menu. Normally, the answer is Yes. After loading the
grading file names, you can enter the scoring percentages you
plan to use for each class. You should also define the range of
scores for letter grades. You need not run the Scoring Menu
program again unless the names of grading files, the class
scoring information, or the letter grade ranges change.
4. To display/print a report of current student averages any time
during the grading period, select item #3 (the Reports Menu) from
the main menu. This will display the available reports. Most of
these can either be printed or displayed on your PC. If, for
example, you select the current grading average report, you will
have an opportunity to select the classes you want to display or
print, in case you don't want to see all of them. The student
grade averages for each grading file you selected will be
displayed on your monitor or printed on a single sheet of paper.
The report shows student names and averages for each category,
23 23
and gives a distribution count of the student scores for that
class by letter grades. Often, it is a good idea to first display
the grade report before actually printing it.
Entering and Editing Grades ___________________________
By selecting item #1 from the main Grading Assistant menu, you will
run the grade entry/edit program. As the program starts, the PC screen
will clear and The Grading Assistant GRADING MENU will appear.
The Grading Assistant -- GRADING MENU _____________________________________
TEACHER: ______________
SUBJECT: ______________ +--DATE--+--TYPE--+----DESCRIPTION-----+
PERIOD: ____ | | | |
GRADE AVG. METHOD: _ +---+-GRADES+---++--+---+-+-+---+-+++---+---+---+---+---+
|# |# |# |# |# |# |# |# |# |# |# |# |# |# |
##+------STUDENTS------+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
+--------------------+-------------------------------------------------------+
The first thing that will happen is that you will be prompted to enter
the name of a grading file. If you want to create a new file, simply
invent and enter a new file name. (Invent a name of eight or fewer
letters or digits unless you are familiar with DOS file drive, path,
and extension identifiers, then press ENTER.) If you want to edit or
enter grades for an existing file, simply type the name of the
previously created file and press ENTER. When you are creating a new
file, it is a good idea to pick simple, unique file names. (I also
recommend that you write them down somewhere convenient.)
If you enter the name of a grading file which already exists, the
information in that file will be retrieved and displayed in the menu
on your screen. If you enter the name of a file which does not exist,
the GRADING MENU program will ask you if you wish to create it. If you
respond by pressing "Y", a new grading file will be created and you
will be asked to enter student and class descriptions for it. If you
press "N", you will be prompted to re-enter the file name you wish.
24 24
(Normally, you will use "N" only when you typed an incorrect file name
by mistake.)
What do you do if you can't remember the names of your grading files?
Well, if you have already defined them in the SCORING Menu (by
selecting item #2 from the main TGA menu), then you can enter "?" in
response to the grading file name and TGA will pop-up a list of the
defined files. Move the cursor up/down to the desired file name and
press ENTER to select that grading file. Or, select EXIT to exit from
the grading menu. NOTE: Since there are no restrictions in TGA (other
than those imposed by DOS) about what you may name your grading files,
this feature can only work by reading the names you have previously
defined in the SCORING Menu.
If you create a new grading file, the name of that file is stored in a
special, temporary file named NEWFILES.TGA. Later, when you run the
Scoring Menu (item #2 from the main menu), you will have the option to
load the names of any newly created grading files. If you respond "Y"
-- yes, load the grading file names -- then TGA will load them into
empty file name spaces in your Scoring Menu. This is simply a time-
saving measure to make it faster and easier to setup your grade
computation data the first time.
The information at the top left corner of the grading menu (TEACHER,
SUBJECT, PERIOD, and GRADE AVERAGING METHOD) is called the class
description. When you create a new grade file, you will automatically
be prompted to enter this information. Thereafter, if you wish to
change it, you can use the F3 key while in the GRADING MENU.
The information at the bottom left of the menu is the list of student
names. When you create a new grading file, you will automatically be
prompted to enter up to 45 student names. Thereafter, if you wish to
add, change, or delete a name from the GRADING MENU, just move the
hilighted cursor to the same line (row) as the student name, and press
F2 (to edit it), F6 (to insert a new name), or F7 (to delete the
student from the class).
Each student has an optional identification (ID) field. You don't have
to use this, but it might be handy for recording the student record
identifier used by your school (perhaps the Social Security Number).
This ID is only used in one report -- the Current Grading Period:
Post Grade Averages Report. That report, run from the Reports Menu,
lists student grade averages by ID, rather than by name, so the
instructor can post grades and retain student privacy. When you
initially enter student names, or when you edit them by pressing F2
from the Grading Menu, you will be able to see and enter/change the
student ID if desired.
The information at the bottom right of the menu is the student grade
area. You can enter a grade by merely moving the hilighted cursor (the
hilighted block on the screen) to a student grade location (cell) and
typing the grade. For example, to enter a grade of "100" you would
position the cursor to where you want the grade entered, then type
25 25
"100". You can also use the F4 key from the GRADING MENU to enter an
entire column of grades for your students.
The information at the top right of the menu is the grade description.
Each column of grades has a description (the date of the grade, a
grade category used in computing student averages, and a short note
you add to describe the grade activity). When you use the F4 key to
enter a column of grades, you will automatically be prompted to enter
the grade date, type, and description. Thereafter, you can change the
description by moving the hilighted cursor to the desired grade column
and pressing F1.
Choosing a Grade Averaging Method _________________________________
The Grading Assistant support two separate types of grade averaging
methods. The one you choose depends on how you prefer to grade. The
default method is grade averaging. _______________
Grade Averaging: In this method, you identify one or more weighted _______________
grade categories. For example, you may decide that DAILY grades will
be worth 50% of the semester grade, and TEST grades will also be worth
50%. You use TGA to enter the grades (each one is shown on the 100-
point grading system) for each category. When TGA computes class and
student averages it:
1) Averages the DAILY grades by adding them together and dividing by
the number of grades.
2) Averages the TEST grades in the same manner.
3) Multiplies the student's DAILY average by the DAILY grade
category weight (50% in this case).
4) Multiplies the TEST average in the same manner.
5) Adds the results of steps 3) and 4), above.
That may sound a little confusing, so here is an example. Suppose John
has two daily grades (100 and 90) and two test grades (90 and 80). In
Step 1), we average the daily grades. The average of 100 and 90 is (
(100 + 90) / 2 ), which is 95. In Step 2), the average of 90 and 80 is
85. In Step 3), we multiply the DAILY average (95) by the DAILY
category weight (50%), which gives us 47.5%. Doing the same in Step 4)
for the TEST average (85) times the TEST category weight (50%), we get
42.5%. Last, we add the two percentages (47.5% + 42.5%), giving us the
total grade average of 90%.
Point Averaging: In the point averaging method, you still have grading _______________
categories, but they aren't weighted. Instead, you control the
relative importance of each assignment by determining how many points
it will be worth. For example, if a quiz is worth 20 points and a test
is worth 100 points, then the test is five times as important as the
quiz. For TGA to do point averaging, it simply adds the total number
26 26
of points the student scored, and divides by the total number of
points possible, to get the grade average. For example, if John scored
a total of 600 points out of a possible 800, his average is 600 / 800,
or 75%.
To tell TGA to use Grade Averaging for a particular class, just enter
"G" for the grade averaging method. Conversely, to use point
averaging, enter "P". Note that you cannot mix both types of averaging
methods in a single class (that would be chaotic), but you can use
different methods for different classes. In other words, your English
class could use grade averaging while your math class used point
averaging.
Entering Class Description Information ______________________________________
When you create a new grading file, you will automatically be prompted
to enter the name of the TEACHER, the SUBJECT, the class PERIOD, and
the GRADE AVERAGING METHOD code. One by one, these fields will be
hilighted. You simply type the information inside the hilighted area
on the screen, and press ENTER for each one when it is complete. Use
the BACKSPACE key to correct any typing errors. You can also use the
left and right arrow keys, the HOME key, and the END key to position
the cursor within the field you are typing. Pressing the DELETE key
will remove the character directly over your cursor. Pressing INSERT
will enable you to insert additional characters to the left of the
cursor.
Thereafter, any time you wish to change the class descriptive
information from the GRADING MENU, just press F3.
Entering Student Names ______________________
When you create a new grading file, you will automatically be prompted
to enter the names of your students. One by one, a new area of the
STUDENTS section will be hilighted. You simply type the name of the
student and press ENTER. When there are no more student names to
enter, just press ENTER without typing a name. This (pressing ENTER
without typing anything) signals the GRADING MENU program that you
don't wish to type any more student names for this grading file. Up to
45 student names can be entered in each grading file.
Thereafter, to change a student name (for example, to correct a
typographical error), simply move the hilighted cursor up or down the
grade column, or use the Page Up/Down keys, so that the cursor is on
the same line (row) as the name to be changed. Press F2 to hilight the
name and edit it.
NOTE: When you blank (erase) a student's name from a class, you
automatically exclude the student's grades from the class average. The
grades for that student are not deleted, however, as insurance against
inadvertent student name deletion. So, if you unintentionally blank a
student name, you can simply use F2 to retype it. Once the name is
27 27
present, the student will once again show up in your class average
listings. Thus, a blank student name is different from using F7 to
delete the student entirely.
Pressing F5 from the Grading Menu will sort the student names
alphabetically. NOTE: This is only useful if you have entered the
student names in LAST-FIRST order (such as "Jones, Tom").
Pressing F6 from the Grading Menu will insert a blank student grade
line ABOVE the row (student line) your cursor is on at the time. (If
the program didn't insert the blank line ABOVE the current line, you
couldn't add a line to the top of your class list.) This feature is
useful for making room in your grade sheet for a new student, and
putting that student in alphabetical order. (NOTE: You could achieve
the same effect by adding the student to the end of your grading
sheet, then using the SORTING function -- pressing F5 -- as described
above.)
Pressing F7 from the Grading Menu will delete the student on the line
(row) your cursor is on at the time. As a safety check, the program
will ask you to verify that you really want to do this. When you
respond with a Y, for Yes, the student record will be deleted from
this class.
Entering Grading Information ____________________________
Grade descriptions are stored for each column of grades. The
descriptions include: (1) the date of the grade, (2) the type (or
category) of grade, and (3) a short descriptive note about the grade
assignment. For example, a typical test grade might have this
description:
DATE: 12/25/87
TYPE: Test
DESCRIPTION: Unit Test, CH. 2
You will automatically be prompted to enter grade descriptive
information when you enter a column of grades using the F4 key.
Thereafter, you can change this information by pressing the F1 key
while the hilighted cursor is in the desired grade column.
NOTE: It is important that you decide very early in the grading period
about which grade TYPEs you will use in a class. For each of these
TYPEs you must enter a grade average percentage (weight) later in the
SCORING MENU program. If you use a grade TYPE not defined in the
SCORING MENU, then when you run the current grade average report
program you will see an error message listing the undefined grade
type.
28 28
Entering Grades _______________
There are two ways to enter grades: a grade at a time, or a column at
a time. The first way is used to enter or correct a single grade, such
as entering a grade for a student who turned in his/her work late
after you had already entered the grades for the rest of the class.
The second way is used to enter a grade for every student in the
class, such as entering yesterday's test grades for your 4th period
science class.
Cursor Movement: Move the hilighted cursor around the grade area of _______________
the screen by pressing the arrow keys. To go to the next screen of
student grades, press the TAB key. To go to the previous screen of
student grades, press the SHIFT and TAB keys simultaneously (called
the BACK TAB). To go to the next screen of student names, press the
PAGE UP or PAGE DOWN keys. To move the top left corner of the grade
area, press HOME. To move to the bottom right corner of the grade
area, press END.
Entering a grade at a time: Move the hilighted cursor to the desired __________________________
student and grade, and type the numeric grade. To remove a grade
completely, press the DEL key. NOTE: A grade of zero ("0") is
absolutely not the same as a DELeted grade. DELeted grades show up as ___
blank (or empty) in the grade areas. Zero grades show up as "0".
DELeted grades are ignored in computing averages. Zero grades count
toward the student's average (in a strongly negative way).
Entering a column of grades: This is the most typical method you will ___________________________
use to enter student grades. Move the hilighted cursor to a grade
column which is blank (meaning that all of the students have no
grades). Press F4. You will be prompted to enter the integer value of
a perfect score. This will normally be "100" if you are working on a
100-point system. However, if you give a quiz with 38 questions and
you want TGA to compute the percentile scores for you based on the
number of questions each student got right, then you would enter "38".
Next, you will be prompted to enter the grade descriptive information.
Then, one by one, you will be prompted to enter a grade for each
student. Enter the grade by typing the number (either the percentile
score or the number of questions the student got right) and pressing
ENTER.
After grades have been entered for all students in the class, the
GRADING MENU will "beep" to let you know you are finished entering the
column of grades. This feature is included in case you are looking at
your grade sheet, and not the screen, and you get ahead of yourself in
typing grades.
NOTE: You do not have to enter a grade for every student. If you ____
simply press the ENTER key without typing a grade, then the current
grade for that student remains.
NOTE: You can also use the F4 grade column entry feature to fill-in ____
missing grades in a column. Any student who already has a grade will
be skipped.
29 29
Special Feature - Additions to Final Grade Average __________________________________________________
The Grading Assistant has a special feature that permits you to add
one or more points to final student grade point averages for the
grading period. Follow these steps to use this feature:
1) While you are in the Grading Menu for the class whose grades you
want to adjust, move the cursor to any unused column of grades.
Press F4 to tell TGA that you want to enter a column of grades.
2) Enter anything you want for the column's grade DATE and
DESCRIPTION. But the FIRST letter of the grade TYPE must be a ____
plus sign (+). This plus sign tells TGA that this column
represents additions to the final grading period average, rather _________
than a normal grade type.
3) Enter the number of points to add to each student's final
average, just as though you were entering a normal grade. For
students who do not get extra points, you can either enter a zero
(0), or just press the ENTER key. This allows you to give each
student a different number of extra credit points if you wish.
When you run the current grade average report, you will see these
extra credit points shown at the far right of the report. You can have
more than one set of extra credit points during a grading period. They
are simply accumulated and shown once in the reports.
Special Feature - Extra Points for Specific Grade Types _______________________________________________________
The Grading Assistant allows you to add extra points to a particular
grade type. This has the same effect as if you had simply added the
points to an existing grade of that type. Follow these steps to use
this feature:
1) While you are in the Grading Menu for the class whose grades you
want to adjust, move the cursor to any unused column of grades.
Press F4 to tell TGA that you want to enter a column of grades.
2) Enter the column's grade DATE and the grade TYPE to which you
want to add extra credit points. For the grade DESCRIPTION, make
sure the first two letters of the description are two plus signs
(++). These dual plus signs tell TGA that this column represents
additions to the grading period average for this grade TYPE. The _________
points you enter will simply be added to the total number of
points for this grade type before the average is computed. For ______
example, if a student had ten DAILY grades and you added a
special extra credit of 20 points to his DAILY score, you would
have raised his overall DAILY grade by 2 points (20 total DAILY
points divided by ten DAILY grades).
Why two plus signs? This is simply a way to avoid the problem of ___
unintentionally entering a grade as extra credit. For example, if
you entered a description of "+ and - problems" for a grade
30 30
column in your math class, you wouldn't want TGA to misinterpret
your description and change the grades to extra credit points. On
the other hand, you need to be careful when entering this type of
extra credit. Suppose you intended to enter DAILY extra credit
points, and your description was "+ Extra Credit Points" (instead
of "++ Extra Credit Points"). Since you only entered one plus ___
sign, TGA would treat this as a DAILY grade. So, the ten points
you wanted to give your students for extra credit would, instead,
be treated as a daily grade of "10". That would certainly harm
their grades rather than helping them! The bottom line: be
careful with extra credit points! TGA may misunderstand your
intent if your description has too many or two few plus signs.
3) Enter the number of points to add to each student's grade type
score, just as though you were entering a normal grade. For
students who do not get extra points, you can either enter a zero
(0), or just press the ENTER key. This allows you to give each
student a different number of extra credit points if you wish.
Naturally, any or all of your normal grade types can have extra
credits added, and you can add more than one set of extra credit
points per grade type.
When you run the current grade average report, you will see these
extra credit points reflected in the students' average grades for that
type.
Entering Scoring Information ____________________________
When you select item #2 from the main Grading Assistant menu, you will
display the SCORING MENU. Your PC screen will clear, and you will see
the following menu:
The Grading Assistant -- SCORING MENU _____________________________________
+----GRADE-FILES-----+ +--TYPE--++PCT++DROP#+ GRADE >=
| | | || || | A+ __
| | | || || | A __
| | | || || | A- __
| | | || || | B+ __
| | | || || | B __
| | | || || | B- __
| | | || || | C+ __
| | | || || | C __
| | | || || | C- __
| | | || || | D+ __
| | | || || | D __
| | +--------++---++-----+ D- __
| | F __
| |
| |
+--------------------+
31 31
The GRADE FILES section of the menu can have the names of up to
fifteen grading files (which you created using the #1 item from The
Grading Assistant main menu). The TYPE section of the menu lists up to
12 grade types for each of the grading files. Each grade TYPE has a
grading percent (PCT) value and a low-score DROP indicator. Your TYPE
values should match the grade TYPE you entered when you keyed grades
into the grading file. The percentage values are defined by you,
according to your grade weighting scheme. The DROP indicator is a
number from 0 to 9. Enter 0 if you do not wish to drop any low scored
for this category. Enter a number from 1 to 9 to tell TGA how many of
the lowest scores to drop. NOTE: TGA will only drop low grades if the
number of grades exceeds the number to drop. In other words, TGA will
drop the lowest two grades only if you have three or more grades for
that category.
For example, a typical Speech class might have the following SCORING
record:
GRADING FILE TYPE PCT DROP? ___________________________________
4SPEECH Orals 50 1
Tests 35 0
Homework 15 0
In this record, "4SPEECH" is the name of the grading file you created
(using the GRADING program) for 4th period Speech class. There are
three types of grades: "Orals" for in-class speeches, "Tests" for in-
class tests, and "Homework" for outside assignments. Respectively,
these three categories of grades contribute 50%, 35%, and 15% toward
the final grade for the grading period. The lowest "Orals" grade will
automatically be dropped for each student in the class (unless the
student has only one grade).
From the SCORING MENU, pressing F1 will allow you to enter or edit the
TYPE, PCT, and DROP values for the hilighted grading file. The grading
file whose type/percent/drop information you are editing will remain
hilighted. You will be prompted to enter a grade type (up to 8
letters), a grade percentage (up to 100 percent), and a single digit
(0-9) indicator to automatically drop the lowest grade(s) for each
student. When you have entered all of the scoring information for a
particular grading file, just press ESCAPE to return to the menu of
grading files.
From the SCORING MENU, pressing F2 will allow you to enter the letter
grade range values. You probably won't need to do this very often. If
you press F2, you will be prompted to enter both the grade letter
scheme you wish (such as "A", "B", "C") and the numeric score at which
each letter grade range begins. Press ESCAPE when you are finished.
For example, if the GRADE section looked like:
A+ 98
A 95
A- 92
B+ 90
.......and so on
32 32
then you are saying that an "A+" is a score from 98 to 100, an "A" is
from 95 to 97, an "A-" is from 92 to 94, a "B+" is from 90 to 91, and
so on.
The default case for TGA is to use "A" through "D" -- each modified
with a "+" or "-", and "F". You may change this grading scheme by
simply editing the grade letters and putting the ones you prefer in
place of them. NOTE: The lowest grade letter (such as an "U" or "F")
should have a minimum grade level of zero (0). Several reports, and
all of the TGAGRAPH bar graphs, will summarize grade averages using
the first letter of the letter grade. That is, if you use "A+", "A", _____
and "A-" then those reports will summarize the number of students
whose score is any of the three as an "A".
From the Scoring Menu, pressing F3 will insert a blank line above the _____
currently highlighted grading file. This might be useful if the order
of grading files is significant in your reports.
Pressing F4 from the Scoring menu will remove the currently
highlighted grading file entry from your list of grading files. It
does not actually delete the grading file; it merely removes it from
the Scoring Menu list of classes.
Summary of Special Data Entry Keys __________________________________
When you are entering textual information (like student names) or
numerical information (like grades), you may find the following
special keys handy:
ESCAPE signals The Grading Assistant program that you wish to
exit from the current menu or action
DELETE removes (deletes) the character above the cursor, or
the whole grade/student/item from many menus. In some
menus, the DELETE key performs a specific action listed
at the bottom of the screen.
BACKSPACE removes the letter/digit to the left of the cursor
END positions the cursor to the end of the value
HOME positions the cursor to the start of the value
arrow moves the cursor around on the screen, in the direction
of the arrow keys
INSERT turns insert mode on or off to permit either overtyping
(the default) or insertion of text. (This does not work
on numeric values, like grades.) In some menus, the
INSERT key performs a specific action listed at the
bottom of the screen.
33 33
When you are entering alphanumeric information (such as student names
or class descriptions), The Grading Assistant automatically removes
any leading or trailing blanks from your entry.
When you are entering numeric information (such as student grades),
The Grading Assistant will automatically replace the current value if
you begin to type a new one. For example, if the hilighted grade is
"76" and you type "8", the "76" disappears and "8" appears in its
place. As you type succeeding digits, the digits are added to the
right. In the previous example, if you next type "6", then you will
see a grade of "86" in the hilighted area.
Displaying and Printing Reports _______________________________
When you are in The Grading Assistant main menu and you select menu
item #3, you will display the Reports Menu, shown below:
The Grading Assistant -- MAIN REPORTS MENU __________________________________________
+---------------------------------------+
Main Reports Menu | |
+---------------------------------------+
+---------------------------------------+
Current Grading Period Reports Menu | |
Grade Period: Averages by Student | |
Yearly: Averages by Class/Student | |
Yearly: Averages by Student | |
Yearly: Students Changing Classes | |
+---------------------------------------+
Each of the items in this menu represents a different report. To begin
a report, simply move the cursor bar up or down to highlight the
desired report, then press ENTER, or, press the hilighted letter in
the the report menu. With the exception of the class roster (which
doesn't make much sense to display), all reports can either be viewed
at your PC or printed on your local printer. Any of the reports can be
aborted, if necessary, by pressing the ESCAPE key while they are
running. After noticing the ESCAPE, TGA will stop the report at the
next convenient breaking point and return you to the Reports Menu. The
available reports are described below.
Current Period Grade Average Reports ____________________________________
If you select menu item #1 from the Main Reports Menu, you will
display the Current Period Reports Menu. TGA has so many reports that
they cannot all fit neatly on one menu. Thus, the seven reports which
use information from your current grading period have all been
collected in a separate menu.
34 34
+----------------------------------+
Current Period Reports Menu | |
+----------------------------------+
+----------------------------------+
Averages by Class/Student | |
Student Interim Grade Report | |
List of Class/Student Grades | |
Student ZERO Grades Listing | |
Print Class Roster | |
Post Class/Student Averages | |
Individual Student Grade Report | |
+----------------------------------+
When you select item #1 from the Current Reports Menu, the Current
Grade Average report will be run. This report shows current grade
averages for each class and for each student in that class.
When you select item #2 from the Current Reports Menu, you will run
the Interim Report program. This program produces an individual report
for each of your students whose overall current grade average is less
than a cut-off score which you specify.
To display or print a listing of the grades for one or more classes
(essentially, this is a snapshot of what you see for a class while in
the Grading Menu), select item #3 from the Current Reports Menu.
To generate a listing of students who have one or more ZERO grades in
a class, select item #4 to run the ZERO Grades Listing report.
To print a roster of students in one or more of your classes, perhaps
for use in recording grades or attendance, select item #5 from the
Current Reports Menu.
To post class grades at the end of a grading period, showing student
identifiers rather than names to maintain anonymity, select item #6
from the Current Reports Menu.
To generate an individual report for each student in selected classes,
select item #7 from the Current Reports Menu. This report will list
each of the students' grades, and it shows their overall grade average
for this period. Like the Interim Report, this report allows you to
selectively include/exclude students from the report.
All of these can be displayed on your PC monitor, directed to a DOS
file named TGA.OUT, or printed on your local printer. The report
program will ask you to select the desired output method from a menu.
Regardless which report you select, the reporting program uses the
information you have previously entered from the GRADING MENU and the
SCORING MENU during this period. The report will display a menu with
the names of all your grading files on the screen, and give you the
option to select the ones you wish to include. By default, no files
are selected. To select a file, move the cursor to highlight the file,
then press INSERT. To omit a file, move the cursor to highlight the
file, then press DELETE. Pressing the SPACE BAR will "toggle" the
35 35
current file--selecting it if it was omitted, or omitting it if it was
selected. Selected files are annotated by a pair of brackets. Omitted
files have no annotation. Pressing CONTROL and ENTER simultaneously
will select or omit all the files. When all files are marked
appropriately, press ENTER to run the report. Or, press ESCAPE to
return to the main menu.
For the files you decide to display/print, the report programs read
the class grading files and display/print current student information.
Any errors which the program encounters, such as misspelled grading
file names or undefined grade types, are either displayed on your PC
screen or printed on your listing.
All of the report programs check to make sure your printer is ready if
you try to print the report. If your printer isn't ready, the program
will beep and display an error message. All you need to do is correct
the situation (for example, by turning on your printer or by adding
paper to it) and press ENTER to continue.
Entering Heading/Footing/Comments on the Interim Report _______________________________________________________
The Interim Report is a little different from the others. Many schools
have their own formats for these reports, and they may require
information not available to The Grading Assistant (such as a class
section number or the dates of the grading period). To give you the
maximum flexibility, the Interim Report has four sections. Section 1
is the Heading -- up to ten lines of text that you define. Section 2
is the main body of the report, student grade averages computed by
TGA. Section 3 is up to ten lines of text for individualized student
comments which you may enter. Section 4 is the Footing -- up to ten
lines of text that you define.
For example, a typical Interim Report would have a Heading that gave
the name of the school system and the grading period number or dates.
The Footing for this report might explain the purpose of an Interim
Report, or give your office hours and telephone number. Using the
Heading and Footing, you can personalize your Interim Reports. Both
the Heading and Footing are optional. If you omit them (leave them
blank) then nothing is printed for them. The Heading and Footing are
the same for every student.
In addition, you can enter an individual comment for each student if
you choose. If you want to enter individual student comments, TGA will
prompt you to enter comments for each student whose grade is below the
cut-off. Comments are optional, and if you omit them for a student (by
leaving them blank) then nothing is printed for them.
To enter text for the Interim Report Heading, Footing, or Student
Comment, you simply type the desired text in the hilighted area on the
screen. TGA will prompt you once, at the beginning of the report, to
enter the Heading and Footing, and again for each student whose
average is below the grade threshold you set. TGA will pause while you
36 36
type the student comments, then print them (after you press ESCAPE)
and go on to the next student.
While you are entering your Heading, Footing, or Student Comments, TGA
acts like a typical typewriter. You simply type the desired text,
pressing ENTER (or ENTER) to go to a new line. Use the arrow keys to
move the cursor. HOME and END take you to the start and end,
respectively, of the current line. DELETE removes the character above
the cursor. BACKSPACE removes the character to the left of the cursor.
INSERT toggles you between insertion and overtype modes. (The cursor
is larger while you are in insertion mode, and normal sized
otherwise.) It is best to think of the comment as ten lines.
To insert a blank line, just move the cursor to the line where you
want a new line to be inserted and press CONTROL and N (for New line)
at the same time. To delete the current line, just press CONTROL and Y
at the same time. In general, if you are familiar with the standard
WordStar formatting commands, the majority of the simple ones work the
same in TGA's Interim Report comment editor.
NOTE: TGA does not save the student comments you enter. It merely ____
formats and prints them on the report. The Heading and Footing
information, however, are stored permanently in files named
INTERIMS.HDF and INTERIMS.FTF, respectively, since you will probably
wish to use them many times.
NOTE: TGA does not prompt you to enter Heading, Footing, or Student ____
Comments if you are displaying the report rather than printing it or
directing it to a file.
Including/Excluding Students on Individual and Interim Reports ______________________________________________________________
The Interim Report and Individual Student Report permit you, if you
are printing the report rather than displaying it, to selectively
exclude students. Why might you use this feature? Perhaps you have a
class in which special education students have been "mainstreamed".
All of the students in your class, except the special education
students, might be given an interim grade report if their grades are
below 70%. Or, alternatively, you may have a class with a mixture of
average and high achievement students. You might wish to send interim
reports for high achievement students whose grades drop below a "B".
In any case, TGA lets you selectively exclude students from the
printed report.
When you run the printed Individual Student Report or Interim Report _______
program, TGA will ask you if you wish to be able to selectively
exclude students. If you press "Y", for Yes, then you will be prompted
for each student who would normally be printed in the report. If you
press "N", for No, then all selected students will be printed in the
report and you will not be prompted for each one.
37 37
If you elect to use selective exclusion, then for each student to be
printed you will be prompted to enter:
Y--yes, include this student in the report
N--no, exclude this student from the report
I--include this student and all the rest in this class
X--exclude this student and all the rest in this class
The "I" and "X" options are simply conveniences that keep you from
having to enter "Y" or "N" for the rest of the students in a class.
Note that "I" and "X" only hold for the current class. If you select
several classes for the reports, the exclusion prompts will begin anew
with each class.
Saving Interim Report Student Names for Labels ______________________________________________
If you are printing the Interim Grade Average Report or saving it to ________
the TGA.OUT DOS file, the program will ask if you wish to save the
names of students for use in printing gummed labels. If you wish TGA
to create a file named INTERIMS.TGA that contains the names of
students whose grade averages are below the threshold you set, simply
answer Y (for Yes) to that prompt. Otherwise, answer N (for No). If
you answer Yes, an INTERIMS.TGA file of ASCII text will be created.
Refer to the TGA Information Menu for additional information about
printing gummed address labels.
End-Of-Year Grading Reports ___________________________
At the end of the grading year, or during the year if you wish, you
can review the cumulative grade averages for your students. The
easiest way to do this is to run the year-to-date grade average
report. To do this, select the desired report from the main Reports
Menu.
The year-to-date report program looks for one or more files named
"YEAREND.!nn" where "nn" is the grading period number from 01 to 12.
(Those files are created at the end of grading periods when you select
the #1 item from the end-of-grading-period menu.) The program reads
these saved grade average summary files, and generates a combined
report for each class and student. The report shows the student
average for each grading period, and computes a year-to-date numerical
average and letter grade.
NOTE: This report matches grade averages from each grading period by ____
using the class subject, class period, and student name. For example,
all of the grading period average records for subject "English", "1st"
period, student "Doe, John" would be collected to compute the year-to-
date grade average. If you change the name of a student during the
year, or if you move the student from one class period or subject to
another, or if you change the class subject, there is no way for this
report to understand the change you made. In that case, the report
will print some of the grading period averages for the student in one
38 38
place, and the rest in another. There is, unfortunately, no way around
this problem since: (1) you may have the same student in more than one
class subject or period, (2) you may have different students in
different classes with the same name, and (3) you may have students
who join your class at midyear, or who leave it. TGA is good, but it
can't read minds.
There is, however, one alternative report you might find useful in
this case. By selecting item #5 from the Reports Menu, you will
display or print the year-to-date averages for all students who
changed periods within the same subject. In other words, if Johnny _______________________________________
Appleseed changed from your 2nd period English class to your 3rd
period class, this program will notice that fact and display his grade
average summary regardless of the class period to which he is
currently assigned. In combination with the other reports, this should
permit you to compute almost 100% of the yearly averages for your
students.
If you want the Year-to-Date Grade Average Report, but you'd prefer to
have it sorted alphabetically by student name rather than by class,
select item #4 from the Reports Menu. This report gives you the same
results as selecting item #3, but sorted by student name. (Naturally,
this sort is only useful if you entered student names in LASTNAME,
FIRSTNAME format.)
There is one additional report you might find useful at the end of a
grading period. Some schools require their teachers to keep student
grade averages by class, but to enter them into another master grade
register alphabetically by student name. That means you would have to
flip through a lot of pages in your grade book (or TGA reports) to
find the students in alphabetical order. But by selecting item #2 from
the Reports Menu, you can generate a report for a single grading
period, listing all of your students in alphabetical order --
regardless of their class period or subject. You may never need to use
this report. But if your school is like many, it will save you hours
of flipping through pages.
Starting a New Grading Period _____________________________
OK, your grading period is over and all of your class average reports
have been run. Report cards are handed out. So what do you do to start
the next grading period?
STEP 1: You need to make a permanent copy of the class averages for ______
use at the end of the grading year. To do this, you select the end-of-
grading-period menu by selecting menu item #4 from The Grading
Assistant main menu. You will see the following menu appear on your PC
screen:
39 39
The Grading Assistant -- END-OF-GRADING-PERIOD MENU ___________________________________________________
+-----------------------------------------------+
End-of-Grading-Period Menu | |
+-----------------------------------------------+
+-----------------------------------------------+
Save grades for the year-end reports | |
Reset class grades for the year-end reports | |
Edit previous grade average summary files | |
Rename old grading period summary file | |
Erase old grading period summary file | |
Zap all data files for new school year | |
+-----------------------------------------------+
Use the cursor arrows to select the desired operation, then press
ENTER to execute it. Or use the function keys instead. Select menu
item #1 to save the grade averages. You will be prompted to enter the
grading period number (from 1 through 12). For example, if you are
teaching in a six-weeks grading period and this is the end of the
second six-weeks period, you would enter "2". This program creates a
grade average summary file named "YEAREND.!nn", where "nn" is the
grading period (from 01 to 12).
What do you do if you run the grade average saving program
prematurely? Don't worry. Just wait until your grades are truly final,
then run it again. You will be prompted to confirm that you want to
overwrite (replace) the previous grade average summary file for this
grading period. Respond with "Y", and you're back in business.
Some schools have a MINIMUM grade average so that students who have
one bad grading period won't ruin their entire year's average. For
example, your school might have a policy that no grading period
average below 65 is permitted. TGA helps you here by prompting you to
enter the minimum grade average permitted. If you enter 65, for
example, then any student whose overall grade is below 65 will be
stored for the year-end average as 65. If you don't want to use this
feature, just enter zero (0) for the minimum average -- then whatever
grade a student earns is what TGA will save. NOTE: This feature only
applies to the grade average stored for use in the single-grading-
period and year-end reports. It does not affect the current or interim
grade average report grades.
STEP 2: You should make a backup copy of the floppy diskette or hard ______
disk directory which has your current grading files on it. That backup
copy becomes your permanent record of the grades and averages. Put the
backup diskette aside for safekeeping. The next section tells you how
to make the backup copy.
FLOPPY DISK: If you have a floppy disk system, use the following steps ___________
to make your diskette copy:
1. Exit from TGA to DOS. Put your DOS diskette in drive A:, then
enter:
40 40
A:DISKCOPY A: B:
2. You will be prompted to insert the source and target diskettes.
Put your Grading Assistant data diskette (the one with the grade _____________
files for this grading period) in the A: drive, and a blank _____
diskette in the B: drive, when you are prompted to do so by the ________
DISKCOPY program. The DISKCOPY command will make the B: diskette
an exact duplicate of the A: diskette. NOTE: You don't need to
format the new diskette first since DISKCOPY will format it if
necessary.
3. When the DISKCOPY command finishes, put the diskette in the A:
drive away for safekeeping. Use the diskette in the B: drive for
the next grading period.
HARD DISK: If you have a hard disk system, use The Grading Assistant _________
Utility Menu BACKUP program (menu item #7) to copy the data files to a
blank, formatted floppy diskette or to another hard disk directory.
STEP 3: You need to "reset" your grading files for the next grading ______
period -- erasing all of the grades from the period just ended. Start
The Grading Assistant, and select item #4 from the main menu. The end-
of-grading-period menu will appear. From that menu, select the #2 menu
item to remove all grades in all grading files. Respond to the "are
you sure?" prompt by pressing Y, for yes.
The reset program reads the SCORING file to identify your grading
files. Then, one by one, each grading file is copied and all student
grades are removed. All other class and student information is
retained. When the program completes, your grading files are ready for
the next grading period. Please be careful! If you prematurely run the
grade reset program, it will erase all of your data for the current
grading period. (Then, only a backup copy can save you from re-keying
the information.)
By selecting item #3 from the end-of-grading-period menu, you can edit
the names and grades of students in any previously saved end-of-
grading-period summary file. This might be useful for: correcting the
misspelling of a student's name throughout several grading periods,
deleting the records of a student who transferred from the school,
adding the records of a student who transferred into the school, or
correcting a grade average that was manually adjusted after the
grading period was final. Be careful! The grades and names in TGA
grading period summary files reflect the ones you presumably filed
with the school system. Use this feature judiciously.
What should you do if you inadvertently enter the wrong grading period
number as you are saving your grades for the year-end reports? Well,
if you entered a previous grading period number (say you are in
grading period 5 and you entered a 4 by mistake), TGA will warn you
that you already have a grading summary file for that period. Just
41 41
tell TGA "N"--for no--when it asks if you wish to write over that
previous grading summary file.
But suppose you are in grading period 5 and you entered a 6 by
mistake. You can rename the summary file, giving it the correct
grading period number. Or you can erase the unwanted summary file.
Selecting the #4 or #5 items from the end-of-grading-period menu
permit you to rename or erase a saved grading period summary file. You
will be prompted to enter the grading period number of the file you
accidentally created.
Selecting item #6 from the end-of-grading-period menu will erase all
of the grading files. You should only use this if you are running TGA
from a hard disk, and you want to begin a new school by wiping out
last year's grade files. Be careful! If you run this prematurely, you
can erase a lot of keying work in a few seconds.
DOS Utilities _____________
DOS provides commands to display file names (DIR), copy files (XCOPY
and COPY), erase them (DEL and ERASE), and rename them (RENAME), as
well as programs to set (CHDIR) and list (DIR) DOS disk and path
identifiers. If you are familiar with these commands, then you may not
need to use the TGA DOS utility menu. This menu simply provides a way
for you to perform those functions without leaving The Grading
Assistant program.
If you wish to use the DOS Utilities, you begin by selecting menu item
#5 from The Grading Assistant main menu. The PC screen will clear, and
the following menu will appear:
The Grading Assistant -- UTILITY MENU _____________________________________
+--------------------------------------------+
Utility Menu | |
+--------------------------------------------+
+--------------------------------------------+
Change the name of a file | |
Erase a file | |
Make a duplicate copy of a file | |
Change the TGA data file path | |
Change the TGA data disk | |
List the files in a disk/path | |
Make a backup copy of your files | |
Restore your files from a backup | |
Temporary exit to DOS; EXIT returns | |
+--------------------------------------------+
Use the cursor arrows and ENTER key to select the desired function, or
press one of the highlighted letters in the desired menu item to
execute it. The program will prompt you to identify the file to be
42 42
renamed, erased, or copied, or the disk/path to be listed or changed.
If you change your mind about performing this function, simply press
ENTER without typing a file name, and the program will return to this
menu. Press ESCAPE to exit from this menu and return to The Grading
Assistant main menu.
One use you might make of the UTILITY program is when you have the
same students in several classes. For example, suppose your class
remains the same for 1st period Reading, 2nd period Spelling, and 3rd
period Social Studies. You can use the GRADING MENU program (item #1
from the main Grading Assistant menu) to enter the students in your
1st period Reading class. Then you can use the UTILITY COPY program
(item #3 from the UTILITY menu) to duplicate the 1st period class for
2nd and 3rd period. That will keep you from having to type the student
names in each class. Now, all you will need to do is correct the class
period and subject information the next time you use the GRADING MENU
program for your 2nd and 3rd period classes.
Selecting item #4 is useful if you want to change the data directory
on which TGA should look for your grading files. There are several
reasons you might want to do this. First, you may have forgotten to
tell TGA the name of your disk and path when you started the program.
No problem. Just go to the Utility Menu, select item #4, and tell TGA
the data path. Another reason you might want to use this feature is if
several teachers are sharing a single PC, and each keeps their grading
files in a separate directory. With the data path changing feature you
can switch between them easily. Item #5 is similar to #4 in that it
lets you switch to a new data disk.
The file listing feature (item #6) is handy if you can't remember the
name of a particular file. It gives you a list of all the files in a
directory, similar to the output of a DOS DIR (directory) command.
Backing up your data files (using item #7) is crucial. You never know
what might happen to your data -- your hard disk might crash, your dog
might chew your floppy disks, or your pre-schooler might use your
floppy drive for a toaster. The safest approach is to make backup
copies of your data to either another hard disk path and/or to a
floppy diskette. To be truly safe, keep the backup copies and your
original TGA diskette in another location (perhaps locked in your
office). Then, if your data is ever damaged, you can use TGA to
restore the data files (using item #8).
Sometimes you need to temporarily suspend your program, drop into DOS
to do a few commands, then return to the program. TGA lets you do this
easily from the Utility Menu. Simply select item #9 from the Utility
Menu and you will temporarily drop into DOS mode. When you are ready
to return to TGA, just enter "EXIT" as a DOS command. Note: TGA ____
remains loaded in memory while you are in DOS, so you will have about
350K less memory while in temporary DOS mode than you normally have.
Also, TGA looks for the location of your COMMAND.COM file (the main
DOS program) by searching for your COMSPEC (don't worry if you don't
know what a COMSPEC is -- it is automatically setup for you when you
43 43
load DOS). Naturally, for TGA to be able to drop into DOS, you need to
have a copy of COMMAND.COM in whichever disk and path your COMSPEC
points to. Usually this is in C:\ on your hard disk or A:\ on your
floppy disk system.
Detailed Example ________________
The following is a detailed example of how you might use The Grading
Assistant. Let's suppose you teach two classes: a first period English
class and a second period Science class. Your first step after
installing The Grading Assistant will be to set up a grading file for
each class.
1. You start The Grading Assistant by entering the command: TGA
2. The main Grading Assistant menu appears on your screen. You
select the GRADING MENU by pressing ENTER.
3. The grading screen appears. You are prompted to enter the name of
the grading file you wish. Since you do not yet have any grading
files, you invent an appropriate name for the first period class;
you enter: 1ENGLISH
4. The program recognizes this as a new file name, and asks you if
you want to create it. You press: Y (for YES)
5. You will be prompted to enter the class description (TEACHER,
SUBJECT, PERIOD, and GRADING METHOD). Enter each by typing the
desired information and pressing ENTER after each one. You will
be prompted to enter STUDENTS. One at a time, type the name of
your students and (optionally) their student identifier. The
format of the names doesn't matter. It can be LAST, FIRST (Doe,
John) or FIRST LAST (John Doe) or whatever you wish. (I recommend
Last, First if you want TGA's help in sorting the students
alphabetically.) If you have less than 45 students, when you have
entered the last student name, merely press ENTER when you are
prompted for the next name. This signals the Grading Menu that
all names have been entered.
6. Press ESCAPE to signify that your grading file is complete. The
program will ask you if you want to save these changes. Press: Y
7. The program will ask you if you want to enter grades for another
file. Since you want to set up the second period class, press: Y
8. A new (blank) grading screen will appear and you will be prompted
for the desired grading file to use. This time, enter an
appropriate name for your second period class: 2SCIENCE
9. Repeat steps 5 and 6 for your second period class. When you are
finished, you are ready to end the grading menu because your
44 44
grading files are created. This time, when the program asks you
if you want to enter grades for another file, press: N (for NO)
10. You are now back at the main Grading Assistant menu again. You
can press ESCAPE to end the program.
Let's now suppose you are ready to enter grades for your first period
class. You need to think about the types of grades you will score in
that class. For example, you might decide to score DAILY grades, TEST
grades, and WRITING projects. Start The Grading Assistant just like
you did earlier by entering: TGA
1. From The Grading Assistant main menu, select the GRADING MENU by
pressing ENTER.
2. The grading menu will appear, and you will be prompted for the
name of the desired grading file. Enter: 1ENGLISH
3. Since the 1ENGLISH grading file already exists, the information
from the file will be retrieved and displayed on the screen. You
are now ready to enter grades.
4. Move the cursor (the hilighted area on the screen) by pressing
the arrow keys until you are in a column which has no grades.
Press F4 to enter an entire column of student grades. You will be
prompted to enter the integer value for a perfect score. Just
press ENTER if it is "100". Next, you will be prompted to enter
the DATE, TYPE, and DESCRIPTION for the grade column. Type each
in turn and press ENTER after each one. Remember: you decided to ________
use DAILY, TEST, and WRITING as your grade types. So you should
type one of these three choices in response to the TYPE prompt.
5. One by one, the hilighted cursor will prompt you to type the
grade for the student on that row. Enter each grade by typing the
numeric grade and pressing ENTER. You can use either the number
keys at the top of the keyboard or the ones on the numeric
keypad. If a student does not have a grade, simply press ENTER
without typing a grade. When you have entered a grade for every
student, the computer will beep to signal the end of the column.
6. Repeat steps 4 and 5 until all grades are entered. If you made
any mistakes keying grades, simply move the cursor to the
incorrect grade and retype it.
7. Press ESCAPE to end grade entry. Do you want to save these
changes? Press: Y
8. Do you want to enter grades for another class? Press: Y
9. Repeat steps 2 through 7 for the second period class,
substituting "2SCIENCE" for "1ENGLISH" as the grading file name.
When you are finished, respond by pressing "N" in response to the
45 45
prompt about entering grades for another class. You are now back
in the main Grading Assistant menu.
10. OK, let's define these two classes to our Scoring Menu. Select
item #2 from the main menu (to display the Scoring Menu). Respond
with "Y" to the prompt about loading recently created grading
file names. TGA will load the names for you. Then, press ESCAPE
and enter "Y" to exit and save the files.
11. Last, let's print class rosters for these two. Select item #3
from the main menu to display the Reports Menu. Press ENTER to
select the Current Period Reports. Then, select item #5 to run
the Class Rosters report. You will see a listing of these two
grading files. Since you want to print rosters for both classes,
make sure your printer is powered on and ready to print, then
press CONTROL + ENTER to select all files, then press ENTER to
run the report. The Grading Assistant will print a roster for
each class. When the printing is complete, you will again be in
the Current Reports Menu. Now press ESCAPE three times (once to
exit from the Current Reports Menu, again to exit from the
Reports Menu, and a final time to leave The Grading Assistant and
return to DOS).
Let's suppose it is the middle of the grading period, and you are
ready to print grade averages for your students to see how they are
doing. You need to first tell The Grading Assistant how you wish to
compute grade averages for each class. Start the program as before, by
entering: TGA
1. From the main Grading Assistant menu, select item #2 to run the
SCORING program. The SCORING menu will appear on the screen.
2. TGA will ask you if you wish to load the previously created
grading file names. Press Y, for Yes, if you have any. The file
name 1ENGLISH will be listed among the grading files. Move the
cursor up/down until that file is highlighted.
3. Press F1 to enter the grade types, percentages, and low score
drop counts for this class.
4. Notice that the first line (initially blank) in the TYPE column
will be hilighted. Enter the first grade type you decided to use.
(Remember: you decided to use DAILY, TEST, and WRITING.) You
enter: DAILY
5. Now the first line of the PCT (short for percentage) column is
hilighted. Enter the percentage (from 1 to 100) of the final
grade which this grade type will make up. Let's suppose DAILY
grades are worth 50%. You enter: 50
NOTE: You do not enter the percent sign (%). "50" means "50%". ______
46 46
6. Now the first line of the DROP# column is hilighted. Enter 1 if
you want to automatically drop the low DAILY score for each
student. Otherwise, enter 0. Let's suppose you enter: 1
7. Repeat steps 4 through 6 for the other two grade types: TEST and
WRITING, but enter 0 for the number of low scores to drop.
8. There are no more grade types to enter, so you just press the
ESCAPE key. If the total of your category percentages does not
total 100, you will see an error message. But you can ignore it
if for some reason you want the total to be more or less than
100.
9. Repeat steps 2 through 8 for each additional grading file. Each
file goes on a separate line of the GRADE FILES column. As you
move the hilighted cursor up/down the column, the TYPE, PCT, and
DROP values for that grade file will be displayed.
10. When you are finished, press ESCAPE to signal that you are ready
to exit. You will be asked if you want to save these changes.
Press: Y
11. You are now back in the main Grading Assistant menu.
Let's suppose you are ready to print a listing of student averages.
You are in the main Grading Assistant menu, so select item #3 to run
the Reports Menu program. From that menu, press ENTER to select the
Current Period Reports Menu. Select item #1 from that menu to run the
Current Grade Average report. Select the "Print" output option from
the menu. You will see a list of your grading files (as defined in the
SCORING MENU). Mark any files you wish to select using the INSERT key,
or CONTROL + ENTER to select/omit all. All other files (not selected)
will not be printed. When you are ready to print, press ENTER.
1. If you told TGA to DISPLAY your report, at the end of each
screenfull of information you would be asked to press the ENTER
key to continue the display on the next screen. But since you
told TGA to PRINT your report, a one-page report will be printed
for each grading file you selected. When the printing is
complete, you will be back in The Grading Assistant main menu.
2. You can review the displayed/printed report to see for each
student: his/her average for each grade category, his/her overall
average as a numerical score, and his/her overall average as a
letter grade. A count of students by grade letter (A, B, C, D,
and F) is also shown on the report.
Now you wish to send home a note to all parents whose children are
failing in your classes. In your school, a grade average below 70 is
failing. You select item #2 in the Current Period Reports Menu, to
print student interim grade reports. Select the "Print" menu option.
Press "N" to skip the entry of individual comments for each student.
The program asks you for the grade below which students will be
reported. You enter: 70. The program generates a report (one student
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per page) for all students in all classes who are failing. At the end
of the reports, press ESCAPE to return to the Reports Menu, and press
ESCAPE again to return to the Main Menu. One more ESCAPE and you are
back in DOS.
Congratulations! You have now run through a complete cycle of grade
definition and entry during a grading period.
Graphing Your Grade Averages ____________________________
This version of The Grading Assistant includes a graphics display
program named TGAGRAPH. If your PC has graphics capability, then you
can use TGAGRAPH to display current grade averages and previous
grading period averages as simple bar graphs. This might be useful to
help you look for unusual grade distributions.
The TGAGRAPH program and data files were automatically installed when
you installed the main TGA program. To run the program, begin as you
do to run the main TGA program. But instead of typing "TGA", enter:
TGAGRAPH disk/path colorswitch _________ ___________
where "disk/path" is an optional DOS disk and/or path identifier that
specifies where your data files are located, and "colorswitch" is an
optional flag to tell TGA to display in color (use "/C") or monochrome
(use "/M"). The syntax for the disk/path is the same as for the main
TGA program. When you run the program, you will see the following menu
appear:
The Grading Assistant -- GRAPHICS MENU ______________________________________
+--------------------------------------------+
Main Menu | |
+--------------------------------------------+
+--------------------------------------------+
Display current grade average graphs | |
Display prior period average graphs | |
Display year-end average graphs | |
+--------------------------------------------+
Select item #1 to display a bar graph for each selected class in the
current grading period. Your menus and graphs will represent the same
information as shown in the Current Grade Average reports seen by
running the current grading period average report from the TGA Reports
Menu.
Select item #2 to display bar graphs for each class in any of the
prior grading periods. Your graphs will represent the same information
as shown in the Grade Period Summary reports seen by running the
grading period report from the main reports menu.
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Select item #3 to display the year-to-date grade average bar graphs
for each class. Your graphs will represent the summary information as
shown in the Year-end Report seen by running the yeat-to-date reports
from the main reports menu.
TGAGRAPH begins by checking your PC to find out the type of graphics
display and monitor you have. It automatically loads the appropriate
graphics interface (one of several data files whose file extension is
BGI). It is important that the BGI files and the TGAGRAPH.EXE program
are both in the same DOS disk and path, and that you begin executing
TGAGRAPH while that directory is the current directory. Otherwise, the ____
TGAGRAPH program will not be able to find the graphics interface files
and the program will end with an error message.
NOTE: There are dozens of different types of graphics display adapters
and monitors, each with its own peculiarities. TGA makes a best-effort
to detect the type of graphics your system can support.
TGAGRAPH will display bar graphs one at a time. Just press ENTER to
view the next one. After the last graph has been displayed you will be
returned to the main TGAGRAPH menu.
Printing a Copy of your Graph _____________________________
How do you print copies of the bar graphs you see on your PC? Well, if _____
you have a dot matrix printer that is compatible with the Epson FX
graphics mode, the IBM Graphics Printer mode, or the IBM Proprinter
Graphics mode, then it is easy. Before the first graph is displayed,
you will be asked if you wish to be able to print copies of the
graphics. If you enter "Y", for yes, then you will be prompted to
enter the type of graphics your printer supports: "E" for Epson FX,
or "I" for IBM Graphics/Proprinter. You will also be prompted to make
your printer ready if it isn't already. Then, after each graph is
displayed on your screen, you can either press ENTER to skip to the
next graph, or "P" (for Print) to print that graphic.
If you have a CGA or MCGA graphics card/monitor, then you can also use
the DOS GRAPHICS command. Just run the GRAPHICS command before you run ______
TGAGRAPH. (See your DOS manual for instructions.) Then, when you want
to print a graphic that is displayed on your PC, just press the Print
Screen key (or press SHIFT and Print Screen on some keyboards). The
DOS GRAPHICS command will do the rest, translating a copy of the
screen and printing it on your IBM/Epson compatible printer.
If you have a Hercules card or one of many varieties of EGA/VGA
graphics cards/monitors, then your graphics card may have also come
with a special program that works like the GRAPHICS DOS command does
for CGA and MCGA. Just run that program before you execute TGAGRAPH,
then use the Print Screen feature to print the graphic.
You will also find a variety of shareware and commercial products that
replace the DOS GRAPHICS command and work on a wide range of PC
graphics cards/monitors. You will only need to use these if your
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printer doesn't support the Epson FX, IBM Graphics, or IBM Proprinter
graphics standard.
Student Information Records ___________________________
This version of TGA contains a product -- TGAINFO -- which helps you
keep student information records. There are many good reasons for
keeping some basic name and address information for your students. You
may need to call the students or their parents at home or at the
parent's office. You may need to send information to the students or
their parents at home. The Grading Assistant makes it easy for you to
keep this information by providing a separate program named TGAINFO.
To run this program, just enter:
TGAINFO disk/path colorswitch _________ ___________
where disk/path is an optional DOS disk identifier and path name for _________
your grading files, and colorswitch is an optional flag to tell TGA to ___________
display in color (use "/C") or monochrome (use "/M"). The screen will
clear and you will see the following menu:
The Grading Assistant -- STUDENT INFORMATION MAIN MENU ______________________________________________________
+--------------------------------------------+
Main Menu | |
+--------------------------------------------+
+--------------------------------------------+
Add students from grading files | |
Edit or Delete student information | |
Run Student Information Report | |
Interim Grade Average Report Labels | |
Labels for an entire class | |
+--------------------------------------------+
Select one of the four actions, or ESCAPE to quit and return to DOS.
#1 This will display the student information loading menu. You will
be prompted to enter the name of an existing grading file. The
names of students from that file will automatically be loaded and
displayed in a menu. You can enter or edit the student
information records for each student in the class.
#2 This will display the student information editing menu. The names
of students that you have previously loaded from your classes
(using item #1, above) will be displayed. You can edit the
address information, or delete the student information record
entirely, for any of these students.
#3 This lets you display on the PC or print on your printer a report
of the student names and addresses.
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#4 When used in conjunction with the Interim Grade Average Report
from the main TGA program, this can be used to print gummed
address labels for each of the students to receive an interim
report.
#5 This lets you print gummed address labels for an entire class
grading file.
If you select item #1 or #2, you will see the student information
loading/editing menu.
Loading/Editing Student Information ___________________________________
+--------------------+--------------------+--------------------+
| | | |
| | | |
| | | |
| | | |
| | | |
| | | |
| | | |
| | | |
| | | |
| | | |
| | | |
| | | |
| | | |
| | | |
| | | |
+--------------------+--------------------+--------------------+
+-----HOME------++-----WORK------+
Telephone: | ++ |
Parent/Guardian: ++ ++
Address: | |
| |
+------------------------------+
Loading Student Names from a Grading File _________________________________________
If you selected item #1 from the main TGA Information Menu, then you
will be prompted to enter the name of a grading file. Simply type the
name of the file and press ENTER. If the grading file name is correct,
the upper part of the Loading Menu will display the names of students
in that class.
You can use the cursor to highlight a student, press ENTER to select
the student, and fill in the information at the bottom of the menu for
the student. If you want to enter information for all of the students ___
in a class, just press INSERT from the Loading Menu. One by one, each
of the students will be automatically selected and you will be
prompted to enter information for that student. Just type the
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appropriate telephone numbers, parent's names, and address, and press
ENTER after each entry.
If you are editing the information for a single student and you want
to duplicate for the selected student the same address information as
the student you just entered, just enter the information for the first
student, highlight the second student's name, then press DELETE
instead of pressing ENTER. The information at the bottom will be
filled in identically to that of the previous menu entry.
Press ESCAPE when you have made all of the additions or corrections
you wish to make for this class.
Editing Student Information ___________________________
If you selected item #2 from the main Student Information menu, then
you will see the names of the first 45 students from your loaded
classes. Use the Page Up/Down keys select the desired group of student
names. Move the cursor to highlight the desired name to change, then
press ENTER to select a highlighted student whose information is to be
edited. Or, press DELETE to delete the student record entirely.
Printing Student Information ____________________________
If you selected item #3 from the main Student Information menu, then
you will be asked whether you wish to print the report or display it
on your PC. Select the "Print", "File", or "Display" option from the
output selection menu. Both of the reports lists students
alphabetically regardless of their class.
Printing Gummed Labels ______________________
If you selected item #4 from the main Student Information menu, then
you will be asked if you wish to print gummed labels or merely display
their format on your PC. If you elect to print the labels, you should
replace the paper in your printer with gummed labels that are: 1 inch
high, 3-1/2 inches wide, and one column to a page. The program will
automatically print the labels for all students who were identified in
an earlier Interim Grade Average Report.
Refer to the Interim Report of the main TGA program for information
about how to identify these students.
If you selected item #5 from the main Student Information menu, then
you will be asked to name an existing class grading file. Just tell
TGA which file you wish, and it will print a label for each student in
the class.
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Exporting Your Grades in DIF Format ___________________________________
One of the earliest generalized formats for exchanging data between
two different programs was called DIFF (data interchange file format).
It was used by VisiCalc and other early spreadsheet programs, and many
current programs can still "import" data in DIF Format. This version
of TGA has a special program named TGA2DIFF.EXE (TGA to DIF Format)
that will create a DIFF data file containing the grading information
from your current grading files. You might find this useful if your
favorite database or graphics program accepts DIFF input. To run the
DIFF conversion program, simply enter:
TGA2DIFF disk/path colorswitch _________ ___________
This is the same format as the TGA, TGAGRAPH, and TGAINFO programs
and, like them, you can tell TGA2DIFF where to look for your data
files if they are not in your current DOS directory, and you can tell
TGA to display in color (use "/C") or monochrome (use "/M"). TGA2DIFF
will prompt you for the name of the grading file to be exported. As in
the Grading Menu, you can press ENTER to get a list of your grading
files. You will also be prompted to give the desired name for the DIFF
output file. The name you choose will depend on the PC program that
you intend to use to import the data.
TGA2DIFF exports your data in the following format. Each data record
consists of seven fields (or columns, if you prefer):
NAME is the student's name
ID is the student's ID, if any
GR_DATE is the date of the grade
GR_TYPE is the grade type/category
GR_DESC is the grade's textual description
GR_PTS is the maximum score possible for this grade
GRADE is the student's score
Thus, if your class had 20 students, each with 10 grades, you would
have 200 (20 x 10) DIFF file records. This may seem like a lot of
unnecessary repetition, but it the only way to export the data and
give you the maximum flexibility to process it in your other PC
programs.
You may never need to use TGA2DIFF. But if your favorite graphics
program would be useful in providing fancy charts from your school
grades, this program may help. If there is sufficient interest from
registered users, the author will consider added features for this
program.
Error Codes ___________
I sincerely hope you never see the TGA error message "Abnormal
termination of TGA -- error code xxx" because it means that TGA had to
stop running because it found a condition for which there was no
remedy. Often, the cause isn't serious in that you can simply correct
53 53
whatever is wrong and continue by restarting TGA. But if you do run __
into this error message, here is what a few of the most likely error
code numbers mean:
5 File access denied.
Your disk may be full or damaged, your file directory may be
full, or the file may be marked as read-only by some other
program.
101 Disk write error.
Your disk is probably full.
150 Disk is write-protected.
162 Hardware failure of your PC.
200 Divide by zero.
TGA tries to prevent this, so if you find one of these it is
probably condition TGA missed. Please let the author know if you
find one.
202 Stack overflow error.
Your PC does not have enough memory (RAM) to run TGA.
204 Invalid pointer operation.
This is usually caused by your PC having insufficient free
contiguous memory to run TGA. TGA uses and frees memory as it
runs, and it is possible that after an extended session you won't
have enough free pieces of memory for TGA to continue.
Since these error messages mean that TGA was forced to end abruptly,
there is always a slight chance that your data file (if you were
running a TGA feature that updates files) may have been damaged. If
this is the case, restore it from your most recent backup copy and re-
enter the changes you made since then. Unfortunately, there isn't much
TGA can do to protect itself against hardware failures. But you can
help by ensuring that you have enough disk and memory to run TGA
effectively, that your PC is in good working order, and that you
backup your data regularly.
Last Words __________
The Grading Assistant should make your job of recording grades and
computing class averages much easier. Teachers have enough hard work
to do without spending hours averaging grades with a calculator! Enjoy
your copy of The Grading Assistant. And don't forget to send your
registration card and $20 to the author. Comments and suggestions from
registered users are always welcome. Happy grading!
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